In January 2025, Ofcom opened an enforcement programme under the Online Safety Act to monitor compliance with regulated services' duties to implement highly effective age assurance to prevent children from encountering pornographic content. On 30 July it started investigating AVS Group Limited, a company registered in the UK which runs various adult websites.

While AVS has implemented some form of age verification, Ofcom does not consider it to be highly effective, and has fined AVS £1 million. It says that AVS must now implement highly effective age assurance within 72 hours of the decision on 4 December, or face a daily penalty of £1,000 per day.

Ofcom has also fined AVS £50,000 for failing to respond to its legally binding information request. It is imposing a daily penalty AVS of £300 per day as of 5 December, until it responds or for 60 days, whichever is sooner.

Ofcom has other companies on the radar and has suggested that further fines may be on the way. It has expanded the scope of its investigation into 4chan, which has said it won't comply, as it doesn't believe that it should be subject to UK law as a US-based platform. 

A recent report by the BBC on this matter revealed that a company called TubeCorporate is the adult content publishing platform behind AVS group Ltd sites. It uses an address in Belize and the same address appears to be the registered address of many companies, although they do not have physical offices there. The BBC has therefore asked if AVS is even aware that Ofcom has been investigating it, or knows about the fine. 

This case illustrates that there's a wider issue here about enforceability where platforms are based overseas and whether the Online Safety Act has enough teeth to enforce the sanctions for non-compliance.  The Online Safety Act confers considerable enforcement powers to Ofcom. Under Chapter 6 of the Online Safety Act, Ofcom can seek a court order for 'business disruption measures', such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring ISPs to block a site in the UK. However, this may take a long time and in the meantime, websites harmful to children are accessible to under 18s when they shouldn't be. 

Last year, DSIT launched an inquiry into the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Amongst other things, it was looking into protections for children against harmful content such as pornography and self-harm material. We are still waiting for the outcome of that inquiry and whether it will make further changes to the Act.