In the last year, age checks have been deployed at a greater scale than ever, but Ofcom has emphasised the need for further action to strengthen protections for children across the system.
It recently issued a report which showed age checks are now being deployed at a larger scale across pornography, social media, dating and gaming sectors, and many services are taking steps to ensure these checks are highly effective. The proportion of children being asked to prove their age with highly effective age checks increased from 25% to 43% between July 2025 and January 2026. All of the UK’s top ten websites and the majority of the top 100 porn sites also now have age checks in place. Ofcom has found these age checks to be an effective deterrent, with nearly 90% of children’s visits to porn sites being under 30 seconds, and 65% being below 10 seconds.
However, Ofcom’s report identifies shortcomings in the implementation of age checks across some services, in addition to areas which require further collaboration and innovation from the wider tech industry. Ofcom wants to see all porn services introduce age checks as soon as possible, as around 4% of children visited at least one porn service with no checks in place. Ofcom will also be working with Google and Bing to address the discoverability of porn sites without age checks by people using their services.
Ofcom has also expressed serious doubts over some popular social media companies’ age inference methods, and TikTok is under investigation. The investigation follows Ofcom’s review of major platforms and a suggestion that these age inference models may have failed to correctly identify a significant proportion of children, potentially exposing them to harmful content. The investigation will seek to establish whether there are reasonable grounds to believe TikTok is failing to comply with its legal obligations. Where Ofcom identifies compliance failures, it can impose fines of up to £18m or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue.
Ofcom has also stated that age checks must be implemented more effectively, including by dating services. Ofcom’s research has shown that over 10% of 15-17% year olds were continuing to visit and spend time on three of the most popular dating apps in December 2025. Ofcom has strongly encouraged all the relevant services to ensure their age checks are highly effective and to regularly carry out due diligence on any third-party vendors they use, in addition to complying with privacy and data protection obligations.
Despite increasing use of highly effective age checks, Ofcom has stated that social media companies’ current age inference methods are insufficient in preventing children from accessing a service at the point of entry, in addition to being ineffective at enforcing minimum age restrictions effectively.
Ofcom will deliver a rapid assessment of what highly effective age checks look like to Parliament by the end of October and will help inform parliamentary debate ahead of age restrictions which may come into force in 2027.
