OnlyFans hit with £1 million fine in UK

Website age verification is not easy – but not to be messed about with

The UK regulator Ofcom has hit OnlyFans with a massive £1 million fine. At cause, the site’s age assurance measures over the past few years.

As a largely adult website, OnlyFans has to comply with strict regulations concerning online safety. The UK's Online Safety Act obliges social media platforms to police potentially harmful content, including terrorism, pornography, and content promoting self-harm. It is particularly focused on keeping children safe online.

Ofcom contacted the site’s owner Fenix in 2022 and 2023 seeking information to ascertain the efficacy of its third-party facial estimation technology, designed to ensure users are over 18.

At the time, Finex maintained that it had set the challenge age using facial recognition at 23, based on a  live selfie sent by the user. If the visitor looks more than this, they have to go through a secondary process.

Fined for inaccurate answer

In January 2024, however, the third-party provider alerted Fenix to the fact that the challenge age was actually set at 20 years old, and Fenix later confirmed this had been the case for more than two years. Fenix informed Ofcom of the error, triggering an investigation.

This error cost the company more than £1 million, reduced by 30% because Fenix accepted Ofcom's findings and settled the case.

(Michael Leahy. Source: Telecoms.com. Photo by Steve Gale /Unsplash)