The United Kingdom made age checks mandatory for adult sites, and now the regulator has counted what actually happened. Ofcom's statutory report on the use of age assurance, covering the first six months of the protection of children duties from July 2025 to January 2026, arrives with an uncomfortable split verdict: the porn industry largely did what it was told, and the mainstream social platforms did not. For creators whose British subscribers now pass through a verification wall, and whose free traffic comes from exactly those social platforms, both halves of that verdict matter.
What did Ofcom find in the first six months?
The figures, as set out in the regulator's report:
- From 25 percent to 43 percent: the share of children who encountered a highly effective age check, between July 2025 and January 2026.
- All of the top 10: every one of the ten most visited pornography sites in the UK now runs age checks, along with most of the top 100.
- Only 8 percent of children online attempt to access pornography at all, and Ofcom says the checks work as a deterrent.
- 23 investigations are open into the providers of 88 adult services that still lacked adequate checks.
- More than 1 in 10 teenagers aged 15 to 17 were still using three of the main dating apps in December 2025, and Ofcom wants those services to add age challenges and liveness detection.
Read plainly: the part of the internet everyone expected to resist has largely complied, and the compliance is measurable.
Why is the regulator now pointing at social media?
Because of how those platforms decide who is a child. Ofcom has expressed serious doubts about the age inference systems built in house by companies including Meta and Google, on a simple structural objection: inference can only work after a young user has already signed up and used the service long enough to be profiled, which is too late to be a gate. The UK data protection authority, the ICO, classes those systems as profiling that does not meet the standard of a highly effective check. Ofcom has also opened an investigation specifically into TikTok's age inference. These are open proceedings and technical assessments, not findings of wrongdoing: no breach has been established and no penalty has been issued.
What does this mean for creators and their fans?
Three practical consequences for anyone selling subscriptions to a British audience:
- The UK is now a gated market. A fan there passes a verification step before they can buy, which adds friction at exactly the moment of conversion. That cost is now normal rather than exceptional, and it lands on compliant platforms first.
- Your free traffic gets stricter. Ofcom is tightening on social platforms and their age systems, so the channels creators use to find fans will be more cautious about age, content and outbound links. Search engines and app stores are the announced next targets.
- Circumvention is now the platforms' problem. The government has decided against banning VPNs, recognising legitimate privacy uses, and has instead put the burden on services to detect and prevent underage workarounds.
The broader map of who has to check what, country by country, is in age verification and adult sites in 2026, and the American version of the same push is in the PROTECT Act and written consent.
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Browse reviewsWhat comes next?
Two dates are already on the calendar. By the end of October 2026 Ofcom is due to give Parliament a rapid assessment of what a highly effective age check means in practice for establishing that someone is over 16, which feeds into the possible restrictions on social media access being discussed for 2027. And by January 2027 the regulator is due to publish a statutory report on the role of protections at the app store level, which would push verification down to the device and the operating system rather than the individual site. For creators, that is the direction to watch: the check is moving away from the page you sell on and toward the phone in the fan's hand.
The sites everyone expected to resist put up the gate. The platforms everyone trusts are still arguing about how to build one.
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Frequently asked questions
What did Ofcom's age assurance report find?
Covering the first six months of the UK protection of children duties, from July 2025 to January 2026, Ofcom reported that the share of children encountering a highly effective age check rose from 25 percent to 43 percent, that all ten of the most visited UK porn sites and most of the top 100 now run checks, and that only 8 percent of children online try to access pornography.
Are adult sites in the UK actually complying with age checks?
Largely yes, according to Ofcom: all of the ten most visited pornography sites in the UK and most of the top 100 now have age checks in place. At the same time the regulator has 23 investigations open into the providers of 88 adult services that still lacked adequate checks.
Why is Ofcom criticising social media age checks?
Because those platforms mostly rely on age inference systems built in house, which Ofcom says can only be applied after a young user has signed up and used the service long enough to be profiled. The UK data protection authority classes such systems as profiling that does not meet the highly effective standard. Ofcom has opened an investigation into TikTok's age inference; no breach has been established.
Will the UK ban VPNs to stop people avoiding age checks?
No. The government has decided against banning VPNs, recognising their legitimate privacy and security uses. Instead the burden falls on platforms, which are expected to detect and prevent attempts by underage users to work around the checks.
Note. Figures from Ofcom's statutory Use of Age Assurance report as reported by BiometricUpdate on July 20, 2026; Ofcom's own pages could not be retrieved directly at the time of writing, so all data here is attributed as reported. The report covers July 2025 to January 2026. Open investigations are proceedings in progress: no breach has been established and no company mentioned has been found in violation. This is general information, not legal advice. FanChecked is an independent review platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OnlyFans, Fansly or Fanvue.
