Ofcom launches investigation into Pornhub's age checks
Ofcom has opened an investigation into Aylo -- the service provider of Pornhub -- under the UK's Online Safety Act, to determine whether it has complied with its duties to prevent children from encountering pornographic content.
In May 2026, Pornhub deployed a new age assurance process for some users. This process relies on signals from a third party, in this case Apple, that suggest UK users trying to access Pornhub may have completed Apple's age checks.
The Online Safety Act is clear that 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. 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.
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.
Ofcom has decided to open a formal investigation to establish whether Aylo has failed to comply with legal obligations under the Online Safety Act, in
particular to:
use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from seeing pornography; and complete 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. Our investigation will not make a determination on how Apple operates its age checks.
In response to Ofcom's announcement See article from aylo.com Statement by Alex Kekesi, VP Brand
and Community, on behalf of Aylo
Four months following our successful launch of age verification on Pornhub for eligible adult users in the United Kingdom (UK) who have confirmed their age through Apple's UK age-verification process, Ofcom informed us that they were launching an
investigation into our use of Apple's age assurance in the United Kingdom. We are committed to working constructively with Ofcom and Apple in our shared commitment to child protection.
We trust that the investigation will show
Apple's UK device-level age-verification update, which renders devices operating since iOS26.4 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.
In March 2026, Apple demonstrated its commitment to child safety by becoming the first operating system developer to automatically enable adult content website filtering, effectively making adult content
websites inaccessible to unverified or minor UK-based Apple iOS and iPadOS users. This update was welcomed with a public statement by Ofcom, in which it praised Apple's decision that the UK be one of the first countries in the world to receive new child
safety protections on devices [as] a real win for children and families206Our rules are flexible and designed to encourage innovation, particularly in age assurance. We've worked closely with Apple and other services to ensure they can be applied in a
variety of contexts in order to ensure users are protected.
In June, the UK government announced its expectation that all operating system manufacturers should follow this same standard. In September, the UK government further
announced it would introduce legislation requiring these device level controls and for them to be enabled by default, reinforcing the strength and importance of Apple's implementation, making this a highly effective age assurance method.
Ofcom's own July 2026 report identifies the fundamental gap: age assurance is effective on individual services when properly implemented, but not yet at an overall system level, due to user migration to non-age assured sites. It
recognizes that protection of children requires a system-wide effort, expressly identifying operating systems as having a potential role in strengthening protections. This is why we support Apple's device-level approach: protecting children should not
depend on every website they visit choosing to follow the rules.
Given Aylo's well-documented commitment to compliance and to the effective protection of minors, we continue to believe that Apple's implementation presents an
opportunity for constructive collaboration and for the UK to establish a meaningful precedent in advancing effective, privacy-preserving online safety. Having experimented in multiple markets with multiple methods of age assurance including in the UK,
Aylo believes 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 UK market.
As outlined by Lucy
Faithfull Foundation, we know that when faced with age verification, some adults are choosing riskier, irresponsible sites to avoid age checks. According to the Free Speech Coalition less than 5% of consumers actually go through with age-verification for
adult content. When confronted with a request for a facial scan and government ID, most consumers simply hit the back button and find a non-compliant site outside the mandate or log on to a VPN. The internet is global and it's impossible to patrol
millions of different sites based in hundreds of different countries. Site-based regulation is always going to encourage evasion.
The UK government's recent announcements acknowledge this, as does Apple's own announcement that it
will deploy the same implementation in Australia. Aylo is prepared to provide the technical evidence, testing and supporting assessments on which that position is based.
Aylo will cooperate fully with the investigation and looks
forward to engaging with the case team.
