Ofcom has today launched investigations into five companies – which collectively run at least 22 pornography sites – under new age-check requirements in the UK’s Online Safety Act.
New duties
On 25 July, new rules under the Act came into force requiring sites that allow users to upload pornographic material to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children in the UK from accessing that content.
Since then, we have been checking compliance with these new duties, and all the top 10 most-visited sites – as well as many smaller ones – have introduced age checks for UK users.
New investigations
We have opened formal investigations into whether the following providers have highly effective age checks in place to protect children from encountering pornography across 22 websites: Cyberitic, LLC, Web Prime Inc, Youngtek Solutions Ltd, ZD Media s.r.o and the provider of xgroovy. If we identify any further sites run by these companies, they will be added to our investigations.
These sites have been prioritised based on the risk of harm they pose and their user numbers, including where there have been significant increases in their user numbers since the 25 July deadline. Collectively, these sites have over 8 million unique monthly UK visitors.[1]
These new cases add to the 47 other sites and apps Ofcom is currently investigating.
Expanding two ongoing investigations
We are also expanding the scope of our existing investigations into 8579 LLC and Itai Tech.
As well as investigating their compliance with the requirement to introduce age checks for pornographic content, we are now also investigating whether they have failed to respond adequately to statutory information requests from Ofcom.
Next steps
We are now gathering and analysing evidence to determine whether any contraventions have occurred. If our assessment indicates compliance failures, we will issue provisional notices of contravention to providers, who can then make representations on our findings, before we make our final decisions.
We will provide updates on these investigations as soon as possible.
Enforcement powers
Where we identify compliance failures, we can require platforms to take specific steps to come into compliance. We can also impose fines of up to £18m or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
Where appropriate, in the most serious cases, we can seek a court order for ‘business disruption measures’, such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to a site in the UK.
Notes to editors:
- Source: SimilarWeb, July 2025 data. Users may be duplicated across sites.
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