{"id":26426,"date":"2025-07-27T03:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26426\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T03:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:54:09","slug":"people-in-the-uk-now-have-to-take-an-age-verification-selfie-to-watch-porn-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26426\/","title":{"rendered":"People in the UK now have to take an age verification selfie to watch porn online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As of Friday, anyone trying to watch porn online in the UK will need to subject themselves to an awkward selfie or get their photo ID ready. The UK government announced it will start checking compliance with its <a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/online-safety-act-explainer\/online-safety-act-explainer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Online Safety Act;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Online Safety Act<\/a>, which requires any website that publishes or displays pornographic content to implement a system for &#8220;highly effective age checks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1\" class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.ofcom.org.uk\/online-safety\/protecting-children\/uks-major-porn-providers-agree-to-age-checks-from-next-month\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Ofcom;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:2;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">Ofcom<\/a>, the UK&#8217;s media regulatory agency, offered a few methods for sites to provide more extensive age verification, including credit card checks, photo ID matching and even estimating a user&#8217;s age with a provided selfie. Several popular porn sites, including the country&#8217;s most-visited site PornHub, have agreed to the new regulations. Beyond popular porn providers, social media sites like <a data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/social-media\/reddit-begins-age-verification-checks-for-uk-users-134516723.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Reddit;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reddit<\/a> and <a data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/social-media\/bluesky-is-adding-age-verification-features-for-users-in-the-uk-195753332.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bluesky;cpos:4;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bluesky<\/a>, have already implemented an age verification system that complies with the Online Safety Act&#8217;s rules.<\/p>\n<p>Savvy internet users are already circumventing the age checks by using a <a data-i13n=\"cpos:5;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/cybersecurity\/vpn\/best-vpn-130004396.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:VPN;cpos:5;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VPN<\/a>, providing a fake ChatGPT-generated photo ID, or taking a <a data-i13n=\"elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:6;pos:1\" class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.thepinknews.com\/2025\/07\/25\/discord-video-game-characters-age-verification-checks-uk-online-safety-act\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:high-quality selfie;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:6;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">high-quality selfie<\/a> of video game characters. However, the UK&#8217;s new law also makes it illegal for websites to promote VPNs that get around age verification. To make sure the Online Safety Act is effective, Ofcom will fine companies caught breaking the rules with fines of up to \u00a318 million or 10 percent of their global revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of Friday, anyone trying to watch porn online in the UK will need to subject themselves to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,415,80,50,16506,16505,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-26426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-gear","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-ofcom","14":"tag-porn","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}