Porn site fined £800,000 for failing to introduce age checks

A pornography site has been fined £800,000 for failing to introduce age checks to prevent children from viewing its content, the regulator has announced.

Ofcom said it had fined Kick Online Entertainment SA following an investigation that found the site failed to comply with age-check requirements between July 25 and December 29 last year.

The regulator said the company had since introduced an age-check method that was “capable of being highly effective”.

However Ofcom said it had also fined Kick £30,000 for failing to respond to its requests for information in an accurate, complete and timely way – adding it would impose a daily penalty of £200 on the company until it responded or for a period of 60 days, whichever was sooner.

New online safety protections for children came into force on July 25.

Since that date, so-called “risky” sites and apps have been expected to use what the regulator has described as highly effective age checks to identify which users are children and subsequently prevent them from accessing pornography, as well as other harmful content including self-harm, suicide, eating disorders and extreme violence.

On July 31 last year, Ofcom launched investigations into 34 pornography sites run by Kick Online Entertainment, 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd and Trendio Ltd.

The regulator said it prioritised the companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operated and their user numbers.

Collectively, the websites had more than nine million unique monthly UK visitors, Ofcom said.

Suzanne Cater, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Having highly effective age checks on adult sites to protect children from pornographic content is non-negotiable.

“Any company that fails to meet this duty – or engage with us – can expect to face robust enforcement action, including significant fines.

“We continue to investigate other sites under the UK’s age check rules and will take further action where necessary.”