LONDON — A number of adult content providers operating in the U.K. have confirmed that they plan to introduce age checks in compliance with the Online Safety Act by the July 25 deadline, according to U.K. media regulator Ofcom.
As XBIZ reported on Wednesday, Aylo — which owns various adult properties including Pornhub, YouPorn and Redtube — has already announced plans to introduce age assurance methods that satisfy the new rules.
According to Ofcom, other services now committed to regulatory compliance include BoyfriendTV, Cam4, FrolicMe, inxxx, Jerkmate, LiveHDCams, MyDirtyHobby, Streamate, Stripchat and Tube8.
“The services named today have indicated that they plan to deploy a type of age assurance solution which Ofcom said could be capable of being highly effective in our guidance,” the Ofcom statement reads. “The way in which these solutions are implemented in practice will be the ultimate test of whether it is compliant with the OSA.”
Andra Chirnogeanu, Director of Business Development for Cam4, told XBIZ that the platform plans to balance protecting minors with ensuring user privacy.
"By complying with Ofcom and the Online Safety Act, Cam4 isn’t just meeting legal requirements — we’re upholding the values we believe in: protecting minors, reinforcing trust and ensuring that online safety matches the standards we expect offline," Chirnogeanu said. "U.K. users can continue to enjoy our platform, knowing that robust protections are in place without sacrificing their privacy."
At the same time, Chirnogeanu added, Cam4 believes that repeatedly asking users to share sensitive personal information poses "unnecessary and unacceptable security risks."
"When content platforms are required to collect and store such data, the potential for a breach increases — and the consequences for users can be devastating," she cautioned. "Cam4 advocates for device- or browser-level age verification solutions — such as those provided by mobile operating systems or web browsers — as a more secure, privacy-preserving and scalable alternative to individual platform-based systems.
"These methods verify age once at the source, rather than across hundreds of sites, and significantly reduce the risk of data exposure," Chirnogeanu noted. "We believe regulators around the world now have an opportunity to pursue smarter, safer and more effective approaches to age assurance — ones that protect children without endangering the privacy of adults."
Issuance of guidelines and enforcement actions under the OSA have been slowly ramping up since the law took effect in 2023. Ofcom released its age assurance guidelines in January and has performed various forms of outreach to make information available to adult sites and platforms.
Meanwhile, the agency has already begun pursuing investigations of sites not in compliance with age assurance requirements.
