All online services within the scope of the Online Safety Act 2023 that allow pornography will be required to implement so-called ‘highly effective age assurance’ measures as the Protection of Children Codes come into force from 25 July 2025.

We have previously discussed the methods and processes that Ofcom has deemed capable of constituting highly effective age assurance here. They include accessing information that a bank has on record regarding a user’s age; matching an uploaded photo-ID document with the image that the user uploads; using ‘facial age estimation’ software; and checking whether the user’s mobile-network operator has removed content restriction filters.

Already some services that allow pornography have begun to implement such measures, while others have committed to bring them in by the 25 July 2025 deadline. Reddit, for example, introduced new measures last week for users who were trying to access certain mature content, requiring them to upload a selfie or government ID which would be verified by a third-party provider.

The changes come as the European Commission has separately published guidelines on the protection of minors online under the Digital Services Act, which include recommendations on the use of age assurance methods which are “accurate, reliable, robust, non-intrusive, and non-discriminatory”. The Commission has also released an “EU white-label age-verification blueprint” which will be piloted in a number of Member States with a view to their taking it up in their national digital wallets or publishing a customised national age verification app on app stores.

To read more about the Commission’s guidelines and the age-verification blueprint, click here and here.