Ofcom has issued the largest fine to date under the Online Safety Act (OSA), demanding that 8579 LLC pays £1.35m for failing to implement age verification on its pornographic sites.
The regulator launched an investigation into the company, which owns dozens of adult sites, days after the OSA’s age-restricted content rules came into force in July of last year.
Ofcom has determined that 8579 LLC has not introduced robust measures to prevent children from accessing its sites’ conent and therefore must not only pay the fine, but meet the act’s requirements or face a daily additional fine of £1,000.
The company has also been fined a further £50,000 for refusing to supply relevant information to the regulator upon request. The company will receive a separate £250 daily fine until it does so.
“We’ve been clear that adult sites must deploy robust age checks to protect children in the UK from seeing porn,” said Ofcom director of enforcement George Lusty.
“Those that fail to do this – or ignore legally binding requests from us – should expect to face fines.”