LONDON—Ofcom, the United Kingdom's digital regulator, has fined yet another online adult entertainment platform for what the agency calls "age-check failings."
The operator of the media sharing website Fapello.com was fined £630,000, or about $850,000 at current exchange rates. Ofcom said in a Thursday announcement of the fine that the penalizing sum derives from "not having age checks in place, and ... for failing to respond to a legally binding information request on time."
"Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act," the agency said. "Sites that host pornographic material must use ‘highly effective’ age assurance to determine whether a particular user is over 18, in order to prevent children from readily accessing that content."
For failing to meet these duties, a £600,000 fine was levied in addition to a £30,000 fine for failure to respond to official requests.
"Age checks are no longer optional for porn sites in the U.K.," added George Lusty, the director of enforcement for Ofcom. "They are a cornerstone of our laws to protect children from content they should not be seeing."
Ofcom also announced Thursday that it has opened an investigation into the platform operators of Eporner.com. Eporner is operated by parent company Bit Hive, a shell firm tied to the owners of the firm based out of Germany and Poland.
"Our investigation will examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that Bit Hive has failed, or is failing, to comply with the section 12 duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 (‘the Act’), which requires providers to prevent children from encountering pornographic content by implementing highly effective age assurance," reads Ofcom's notice.
The investigation into Eporner.com is ongoing.
