Ofcom's First Age Assurance Report Warns Tougher Action Is Needed
Ofcom's first statutory age assurance report found checks working at scale but the job unfinished, citing 23 open investigations into 88 adult services and gaps that let children reach non-compliant sites.
What Changed
On 15 July 2026, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) published its first statutory Use of Age Assurance Report under the Online Safety Act 2023, assessing how regulated services have deployed highly effective age assurance and how effective it has proved. Ofcom found age checks operating at unprecedented scale but declared the job unfinished, warning that tougher action is needed. The regulator confirmed it has opened 23 investigations into providers of 88 adult services and imposed fines on non-compliant operators. It also flagged that some pornography services still operate without checks, and that search results too often surface non-compliant sites, blunting the protection the regime is meant to deliver.
Who It Affects
Pornography services under Parts 3 and 5 of the Act, plus social media, search, and any user-to-user or content platform where children may encounter harmful material. Search providers are now explicitly in Ofcom's line of sight for surfacing non-compliant destinations. With the statutory bar defined and enforcement already live, every regulated service is being benchmarked against a documented standard for highly effective age assurance, and thin or self-declared checks will not clear it.
What to Do
Confirm your age assurance meets the highly effective standard rather than relying on self-declaration or a single weak signal. Combine methods, such as document-and-liveness verification, facial age estimation, and reusable certified credentials, matched to the risk of the content. Keep evidence of coverage, completion rates, and circumvention testing, since Ofcom's investigations turn on demonstrable effectiveness. Review how users can reach your service through search and close obvious bypass routes before enforcement reaches you.
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