Porn company fined £1m over inadequate safety checks

Ofcom have issued their largest fine yet to a company for failing to put in place sufficiently robust age checks under the Online Safety Act.

The Online Safety Act, which CARE argued strongly for, includes measures to ensure that children and young people online. It put a duty on pornographic websites, and other online providers, to implement robust age verification too ensure that those under 18 cannot access their services.

Ofcom has said that the AVS Group, which runs 18 adult websites, has failed to provide sufficiently robust age checks. They have issued the company with a fine of £1 million, with an extra £50,000 fine for failing to respond to information requests.

AVS Group now have 72 hours to implement effective age verification or they will face an additional fine of £1,000 a day.

Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's online safety group director, said: “This year has seen important changes for people, with new measures across many sites and apps now better protecting children from harmful content,” adding that the “tide on online safety” is starting to turn.

“But we need to see much more from tech companies next year and we'll use our full powers if they fall short,” he added.

A “major social media company” is also going through compliance remediation with the Ofcom enforcement team, with the possibility of formal action if they do not see sufficient improvement. However, the online form 4chan has so far failed to comply with a £20,000 fine issued by the regulator earlier this year.