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AVS Group Ltd
30 July 2025
We are investigating whether AVS Group Ltd has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 to prevent children from encountering pornographic content on its service through the use of highly effective age assurance. We are also investigating whether AVS Group Ltd has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duty to respond accurately to an information notice sent under the Act.
Sections 12 and 102(8) of the Online Safety Act 2023
On 3 December 2025, we issued a Confirmation Decision to AVS Group Ltd, in which we imposed two single penalties for failures to comply with the Online Safety Act, consisting of:
- £1 million for its contravention of section 12 of the Act; and
- £50,000 for its contravention of section 102(8) of the Act.
The deadline for paying the single penalties has now passed. We have yet to receive payment of the penalties and are considering next steps for recovery.
We also imposed two daily penalties to reflect that these breaches were still ongoing at the date of the Confirmation Decision. In the event of continuing non-compliance, we set out that the daily penalties would continue to accrue for both breaches until either: the company took steps to come into compliance with the relevant duties; or to a maximum of 100 days for the breach of section 12 of the Act, and 60 days for the breach of section 102(8) of the Act.
After the Confirmation Decision was issued, AVS Group Ltd took steps to introduce age assurance that is capable of being highly effective at identifying whether a user is a child across all 18 of the websites under investigation. Ofcom confirmed on 8 January 2026 that the total daily penalty to be imposed for this breach, therefore, was £8,000. The deadline for payment of this element of the penalty has now passed. We have yet to receive payment and are considering next steps for recovery.
In relation to the breach of section 102(8) of the Act, the maximum accrual period of 60 days ended on 1 February 2026. As such, on 13 February 2026 Ofcom confirmed that the total daily penalty to be imposed was £18,000. In accordance with the Act, Ofcom must provide a reasonable period from the final date the penalty was incurred (being 1 February 2026) for payment to be made. In this matter, Ofcom has allowed AVS Group Ltd until 1 April 2026, by which time the penalty must be paid.
The final penalty amounts have been published on our financial reporting webpage.
Ofcom has today published a non-confidential version of the Confirmation Decision that we issued to AVS Group Ltd on 3 December 2025 under the Online Safety Act 2023 (‘the Act’).
The Decision concerns our investigation into AVS Group Ltd’s compliance with its duties to prevent children from encountering pornographic content on its websites through the use of highly effective age assurance, and to respond to a request for information.
In accordance with section 132 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (‘the Act’), on 3 December 2025 we issued AVS Group Ltd with a Confirmation Decision in relation to its failure to comply with section 12 of the Act and its failure to comply with a statutory information request.
Failure to comply with section 12 of the Act
Ofcom has determined that AVS Group Ltd has failed to comply with section 12 of the Act and this failure is ongoing. Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of services that fall under Part 3 of the Act, and allow pornographic content, to ensure that children are prevented from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.
From 25 July 2025 until at least 25 November 2025, each of the AVS Group websites either:
- did not implement any age assurance measures; or
- implemented measures that were not highly effective at determining whether a user was a child. In particular, AVS Group Ltd deployed a photo upload check on its services that does not include liveness detection and as such is vulnerable to circumvention by children (for example, by uploading a photo of an adult). Ofcom considers that this method is not capable of being highly effective within the meaning of the Act.
We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £1,000,000 in respect of the contravention of section 12. This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.
In addition, AVS Group Ltd is now required to comply with section 12 by taking steps to implement highly effective age assurance on all remaining AVS Group websites that do not currently have such measures in place by 5pm GMT on 6 December 2025.
Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £1,000 per day will be imposed starting from 6 December 2025 until the section 12 duty is complied with or 16 March 2026, whichever is sooner.
Failure to comply with section 102(8) of the Act
Ofcom has also determined that AVS Group Ltd has failed to comply with section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information within the specified time frame issued as part of the investigation. We are imposing a penalty on AVS Group Ltd of £50,000 in respect of the contravention of section 102(8). This penalty was set having regard to our Penalty Guidelines.
In addition, AVS Group Ltd is now required to take immediate steps to provide Ofcom with a complete list of all sites operated by AVS Group Ltd.
Should AVS Group Ltd fail to comply with this requirement, a daily rate penalty of £300 per day will be imposed starting from 4 December 2025 until the section 102(8) duty is complied with or 1 February 2026 whichever is sooner.
A non-confidential version of the Confirmation Decision will be published shortly.
Following an investigation, Ofcom has provisionally determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe AVS Group Ltd has failed, and is failing, to comply with section 12 of the Online Safety Act (‘the Act’). Section 12 imposes a duty on providers of services that fall under Part 3 of the Act, and allow pornographic content, to ensure that children are prevented from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.
Ofcom therefore issued a provisional notice of contravention to AVS Group Ltd on 10 October 2025 under section 130 of the Act. The notice also sets out our provisional view that AVS Group Ltd has infringed its duties under section 102(8) of the Act by failing to respond to a statutory request for information issued as part of the investigation.
The notice sets out the facts that Ofcom has relied upon to reach its provisional view, the actions we propose to take, and the rationale for those decisions. AVS Group Ltd will now have a period of 20 working days to make representations to Ofcom, which will be carefully considered before reaching a final decision.
On 30 July 2025, Ofcom issued a formal information notice to AVS Group Ltd under section 100 of the Online Safety Act. At the time of publishing this announcement, we have not received a response to the information notice. Ofcom has therefore now expanded this investigation to include considering whether AVS Group Ltd has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duty to respond accurately to an information notice sent under the Act.
On 16 January 2025, Ofcom opened an enforcement programme under the Online Safety Act (‘the Act’) to monitor compliance with regulated services’ duties to implement highly effective age assurance to prevent children from encountering pornographic content.
The programme initially focused on the duties of Part 5 services – those that publish or display their own pornographic content - to implement highly effective age assurance in accordance with section 81 of the Act. These duties have applied since 17 January 2025. The enforcement programme was expanded on 25 July 2025 to include Part 3 services – those that allow users to upload or generate their own pornographic content.
On 30 July 2025, under this expanded enforcement programme, we have opened an investigation into AVS Group Ltd in relation to the adult sites www.pornzog.com, www.txxx.com, www.txxx.tube, www.upornia.com, www.hdzog.com, www.hdzog.tube, www.thegay.com, www.thegay.tube, www.ooxxx.com, www.hotmovs.com, www.hclips.com, www.vjav.com, www.pornl.com, www.voyeurhit.com, www.manysex.com, www.tubepornclassic.com, www.shemalez.com and www.shemalez.tube.
Ofcom’s investigation will examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that the provider has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties under section 12 of the Act, which requires services to prevent children from encountering pornographic content through the use of highly effective age assurance.
Ofcom’s Online Safety Enforcement Guidance sets out how Ofcom will normally approach enforcement under the Act. This includes our approach to information gathering and analysis and the procedural steps we must take to fairly determine the outcome of the investigation.
We will provide an update on the investigation in due course.
CW/01312/07/25