LONDON — U.K. media regulator Ofcom has opened an investigation to determine whether Pornhub parent company Aylo’s use of device-based age verification complies with the U.K.’s Online Safety Act.
As XBIZ reported in May, Aylo restored access to its free video-sharing platforms for U.K. users who use Apple devices and have confirmed their age through Apple’s U.K. age-verification process.
Aylo had previously introduced age assurance methods that satisfied government rules under the OSA, but in February of this year, the company began blocking access in the U.K. unless users had already set up accounts, citing what it viewed as the OSA’s “flawed system.”
With the launch of iOS 26.4 in March, Apple began implementing device-based age verification for users in the U.K. At the time, Aylo called the move “one of the strongest and hardest to circumvent protections currently available for helping prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content,” and expressed the hope that the effectiveness of Apple’s device-based AV solution would spur a global rollout across other operating systems internationally.
Ofcom also praised Apple's age verification methods, calling the implementation “a real win for children and families,” but the agency now appears to have backtracked.
In a post announcing the new investigation, Ofcom states, “We are concerned that Aylo may not have conducted sufficient due diligence and testing before implementing its new age assurance process. As a result, we are concerned that Aylo’s process may not be highly effective at preventing children from seeing pornography.”
Under the OSA, the statement notes, it is the service provider’s responsibility to ensure that any age assurance process is highly effective, “no matter at what stage an age check occurs.”
“Providers must also carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of whether their service is likely to be accessed by children,” the statement continues. “They must do this before making any significant change to the design or operation of their service, or in response to evidence about reduced effectiveness of age checks.”
The new investigation will examine whether Aylo’s device-based approach constitutes highly effective age assurance, and whether the company has performed a “suitable and sufficient” children’s access assessment.
“As part of our investigation we will consider how Aylo implemented its age assurance process, and whether it conducted the necessary due diligence before deployment,” the Ofcom statement explains. “Our investigation will not make a determination on how Apple operates its age checks.”
Alex Kekesi, Aylo’s VP Brand and Community, said that Aylo will cooperate fully with the investigation, but defended the company’s use of Apple age assurance.
“We are committed to working constructively with Ofcom and Apple in our shared commitment to child protection,” Kekesi said. “We trust that the investigation will show Apple’s U.K. device-level age-verification update, which renders devices operating since iOS 26.4 kid-safe by default, offers one of the strongest and hardest-to-circumvent protections currently available for helping prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content.”
Kekesi reaffirmed Aylo’s belief that Apple’s implementation is “a pioneering approach for child safety that provides significantly stronger protection than any other age assurance method currently available in the U.K. market.”
“The internet is global and it's impossible to patrol millions of different sites based in hundreds of different countries,” Kekesi said. “Site-based regulation is always going to encourage evasion.”
