As of 25 July 2025, all sites and apps that allow adult content will need to have strong age checks in place, to make sure children can’t access that or other harmful content.
This is a significant change to how adults in the UK access adult content, and is a key step in helping to protect children from harmful content when they’re online, regulator Ofcom said in an accompanying statement.
The rules are being introduced under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom is the UK’s regulator for online safety, and keeping children safe when they’re online is a key priority for the group.
“Until now, it’s been too easy for children to see harmful content, including adult content, online. New research from Ofcom has found that 8% of children aged 8-14 in the UK visited an online adult site or app in a month – including around 3% of 8–9-year-olds – the youngest children in the study,” the group said.
“As the regulator, we won’t be assessing individual pieces of content, or telling online services to remove legal material. Our role is not to stop adults from accessing legal adult content, but from 25 July, stronger checks will be needed and crucially, just ticking a box to say you’re over 18 will no longer be enough.”
How will users be checked
There are a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:
- Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age.
- Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.
- Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.
- Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.
- Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers – to estimate your age.
- Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18.
- Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.
“We expect sites and apps to engage with us and comply with their duties under our new rules,” Ofcom said.
“If they don’t, we can impose fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue (whichever is greater). And in the most serious cases, we can ask a court to impose sanctions on third parties, such as internet providers, which could lead to the site being blocked or restricted in the UK.”
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