Ofcom’s AVS fine showed why an age-check screen is only the beginning
The December 2025 case turned on whether checks worked in practice. Later updates separated technical compliance from penalties and payment.
- Event / announcement date
- 2025-12-04
Ofcom announced a £1 million penalty against AVS Group on December 4, 2025, for failing to provide sufficiently effective age checks across 18 adult websites. It also imposed £50,000 for failing to answer an information request. The two penalties addressed different obligations: preventing children from reaching restricted material, and supplying the regulator with information needed to assess the business. [1]
The case record identifies the decision date as December 3 and explains the technical failure. Some sites had no age assurance; others used a photograph upload without liveness detection, which Ofcom considered insufficiently robust. The distinction matters for service operators: displaying a check is not the same as demonstrating that it can determine whether the person using the service is a child. [2]
Ofcom’s guidance, updated September 2, 2026, uses four criteria: technical accuracy, robustness in actual deployment, reliability and fairness. It lists several approaches capable of meeting the standard, but not self-declaration of age or a debit-card check by itself. The assessment therefore concerns the implementation and how it performs, rather than simply adopting a method with an age-verification label. [3]
The guidance also distinguishes user-to-user services under Part 3 of the UK Online Safety Act from publishers’ own regulated adult content under Part 5. The latter have separate recordkeeping duties, including how privacy and data-protection law informed their choice of process. Those distinctions are important when applying the guidance to a business; a requirement described for one service category should not be casually transferred to every website. [3]
Later evidence changed the compliance picture. The case record, last updated March 9, says AVS introduced age assurance capable of meeting the standard on all 18 sites, with £8,000 in daily penalties confirmed in January. It separately records £18,000 for continuing information-request noncompliance. The investigation closed January 15. Closing it and collecting its penalties are different steps: the March update recorded unpaid sums, without establishing their status today. [2]
The December announcement outlined further powers, including seeking recovery of unpaid penalties and, where appropriate, court-ordered business disruption. These were available enforcement routes, not a statement that a court had ordered AVS blocked or that a penalty had already been recovered. The case shows why technical remediation, information disclosure and payment need their own evidence. [1]
The source
- Ofcom: Ofcom fines porn company £1 million for not having robust age checks ↗
Source date 2025-12-04 · reviewed October 28, 2026 · Date shown by the primary page or its structured publication metadata; event date is recorded separately in the draft. - Ofcom: Investigation into AVS Group Ltd’s compliance with the duty to prevent children from encountering pornographic content through the use of age assurance ↗
Source date 2025-07-31 · reviewed October 28, 2026 · Date shown by the primary page or its structured publication metadata; event date is recorded separately in the draft. - Ofcom: Age assurance duties under the Online Safety Act ↗
Source date 2024-02-23 · reviewed October 28, 2026 · Date shown by the primary page or its structured publication metadata; event date is recorded separately in the draft.
About this item: Retrospective report. No first-hand reporting or independent testing is claimed. Corrections policy.
