As of July 25, 2025, all sites and apps that allow pornography will need to have strong age checks in place, to make sure children can’t access that or other harmful content. This represents the most significant change to how adults access online content in the UK since the internet’s mainstream adoption.
Gone are the days when you could merely click “I am over 18” to prove your age, because sites like Pornhub will now require age verification as per the Online Safety Act. Platforms face fines up to £18 million (€20 million) or 10 per cent of their global revenue. Services that publish their own pornographic content (defined as ‘Part 5 Services’) including certain Generative AI tools, must begin taking steps immediately to introduce robust age checks.
Read more…
Source: ComplianceHub News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Posting hateful speech online could lead to police raiding your home in this European country
February 16, 2025
If you’ve ever dared to read the comments on a social media post, you might start to wonder if civilized discourse is just a myth. Aggressive threats, lies, and harassment have unfortunately become the norm online, where anonymity has emboldened some users to push the limits of civility. In the United States, most of what ...
- Meta shelves fact-checking for ‘Community Notes’ model in major policy reversal
January 7, 2025
Social media giant Meta on Tuesday scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program for a community-based system similar to X and reduced the curbs on discussions around contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity. The move marks a reversal in Meta’s content moderation policy as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long championed active content moderation despite criticism from ...
- Europol spearheads largest referral action against online hate speech
December 16, 2024
Europol has supported 18 European law enforcement agencies in the 2024 Referral Action Day (RAD) on hate speech and incitement to violence targeting ethnoreligious groups. Spanish and Hungarian authorities led the action, which resulted in a record number of online content being identified. In total, 12 countries collected over 6 350 links from 46 online platforms ...
- Australia’s social media ban for children makes global headlines as some news outlets ask if their country could be next
November 29, 2024
Australia’s social media ban for children has made headlines around the world, as articles questioned how it could work and whether similar laws would be introduced elsewhere. The legislation passed through the Senate on Thursday, and while it still faces one final vote in the lower house to approve amendments, that will be a formality. The ...
- Pakistan tests secret China-like ‘firewall’ to tighten online surveillance
November 26, 2024
Pakistan’s government has deployed Chinese technology to build what some senior officials familiar with the project are calling a new, national internet “firewall” that will allow authorities to monitor online traffic and regulate the use of popular apps with greater control than before. The project aims to upgrade the government’s web monitoring capabilities at the country’s ...
- Elon Musk to British MPs: I’ll summon you, actually
November 21, 2024
Elon Musk is beefing with British politicians again — and they’re not impressed. The X owner and Donald Trump ally brushed off a call from the House of Commons’ science and technology committee to answer questions on his role in riots that swept the U.K. this summer. Committee chair Chi Onwurah told POLITICO this week that ...