WIREDGOV

Ofcom has issued a £50,000 fine against the provider of a nudification site for failing to use age-checks to protect children from online pornography, while 20 more porn services are targeted for enforcement

• New investigations launched into a further 20 pornography sites as regulator continues crack-down on non-compliance

Robust age checks – which include age verification, age estimation or a combination of both - are a cornerstone of the Online Safety Act and must be ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child. 

Regulated services are also required, by law, to respond to Ofcom’s requests for information in an accurate, complete and timely way, which is fundamental to our job as a regulator.

Earlier this year, we opened an enforcement programme to determine industry compliance with their age-check duties and, as part of this, issued statutory information requests to a range of companies. 

We are announcing a number of updates under this enforcement programme:

Provider of nudification site fined 

An Ofcom investigation has concluded that Itai Tech Ltd – which runs the nudification site Undress.cc - has failed to use highly effective age assurance to protect children from encountering pornographic content.   

As a result, Ofcom has imposed a fine of £50,000 on Itai Tech Ltd, which takes into account  the provider’s decision to make the site unavailable to users with UK IP addresses shortly after we opened our investigation. An additional £5,000 penalty has been levied on the company on account of its failure to comply with a statutory information request. The fines will be passed on to HM Treasury.[1]

In addition, Ofcom has also issued two provisional decisions against 8579 LLC and Kick Online Entertainment S.A for similar failings. Both providers now have an opportunity to make representations to us before we make our final decisions.

Investigations opened into 20 more adult sites

Ofcom has opened new investigations under its age assurance enforcement programme into five providers which together operate 20 pornography sites. The companies under investigation are: Sun Social Media Inc; the provider of various xxbrits sites; the provider of a number of porntrex sites; the provider of fapello.com; and the provider of hqporner.com.

We have prioritised action against these companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operate. We have taken particular account of their user numbers, including where we have seen significant increases in their user traffic since age-check laws came into force last summer. 

Separately, we are announcing an expansion to our ongoing investigations into Cyberitic, LLC and the provider of xgroovy.com to determine whether they have also failed to adequately respond to Ofcom’s formal requests for information. 

These new cases take the number of sites and apps currently under investigation by Ofcom under the Online Safey Act to 76. 

Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “The use of highly effective age assurance to protect children from harmful pornographic content is non-negotiable and we will accept no excuses for failure. Any service which fails to meet their age-check duties under the Online Safety Act can expect to face robust enforcement action, including significant fines.” 

Earlier this year we launched an investigation due to concerns that Trendio Ltd had not implemented highly effective age assurance measures to protect children from encountering pornographic content on the 11 sites it operates.

In response to our investigation, Trendio Ltd provided information indicating that the provider had taken steps in good faith towards compliance by the statutory deadline. Consequently, we do not consider it appropriate to continue the investigation, so have closed our case against this provider.