Ofcom has today fined an online porn provider £600,000 for not having age checks in place, and a further £30,000 for failing to respond to a legally binding information request on time.
The UK’s independent online safety watchdog has also today opened a new investigation into another porn provider.
Porn site fined blocks UK
Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the UK’s Online Safety Act. Sites that host pornographic material must use ‘highly effective’ age assurance to determine whether a particular user is over 18, in order to prevent children from readily accessing that content.
The provider of fapello.com has failed to comply with these duties, and as a result, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £600,000.
Since Ofcom instigated formal enforcement action against this provider, it has ‘geoblocked’ access from UK IP addresses, meaning it is no longer directly available to people in the UK. We will continue to monitor the site for compliance.
Responding to legally binding information requests
Gathering accurate information from companies is fundamental to our job of making life safer online for people in the UK. These requests help us assess and monitor industry compliance with their safety duties, and firms are required, by law, to respond in an accurate, complete and timely way.
During the course of our investigation, we issued a formal request for information to the provider of fapello.com, and the provider failed to respond. As a result, we have fined the provider an additional £30,000.
George Lusty, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Age checks are no longer optional for porn sites in the UK. They are a cornerstone of our laws to protect children from content they should not be seeing. Providers also need to know that if they don’t supply accurate information to us on time, when we request it, they should expect to face enforcement action, including fines.”
New investigation opened
Additionally, Ofcom has opened an investigation into Bit Hive, the provider of porn site eporner.com, to assess its compliance with age-check rules under the Online Safety Act. Specifically, we are concerned that one of the methods of age assurance Bit Hive has implemented may not be highly effective.
We have prioritised action against this provider based on its user numbers.
Notes to editors:
- Additionally, we are today expanding the scope of our existing investigation into the provider of kemono.cr to consider whether it has failed to comply with requirements to respond to a legally binding request for information.
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