Porn site company fined £630,000 over failed age checks Source: BBC News

 

The UK regulator continues its challenges to Porn sites that remain open without any age verification in place. The rules regarding such material are governed by UK legislation design to prevent children and young people from accessing such content by requiring the service providers to implement effective age verification mechanisms.

 

 Failure to do this results in fines and other actions against the provider and to date a large number of such providers have obeyed the law and put controls in place. 

 

This latest story from July 2026 shows that such fines can be massive and grow should companies refuse to obey the UK legislation. If companies refuse to comply OFCOM have a range of actions they can take:

• Substantial Fines: Ofcom has the authority to fine non-compliant companies up to £18 million or 10% of their global annual turnover, whichever is higher. For example, the regulator has previously fined adult providers up to £1.35 million for failing to enforce proper age verification.  
• Daily Financial Penalties: Sites that fail to comply after being penalized or those that ignore legally binding information requests face ongoing daily financial penalties. 
• Site Blocking: In extreme cases of persistent non-cooperation or refusal to implement checks, Ofcom holds the power to block access to the website entirely within the UK.

The rules seem to be working with fines amounting to over £2.5million issued since the beginning of 2026.

 

Read the full story here. 

 

 

Story:Online child sexual abuse surges by 26% in year as police say tech firms must act Source|: The Guardian

 

Figures for England and Wales show there were 51,672 offences for child sexual exploitation and abuse online in 2024. Online child sexual abuse in England and Wales has surged by a quarter within a year, figures show, prompting police to call for social media platforms to do more to protect young people.

We don't yet know what the impact will be of the new Online safety Act and hopefully the numbers will drop significantly do to the act.

Becky Riggs, the acting chief constable of Staffordshire police who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection and abuse, said: “I know that these platforms, with the technology that’s out there, could prevent these harms from occurring in the first instance.”

She added that technology used by children should come with inbuilt protections, such as mobile phones that allow them to only access safe platforms and websites.

This issue will clearly not go away and our Family Internet Safety Project aims to promote pro-active monitoring rather than waiting until things happen.

Read the full story here. 

 

 

Story:Charities Warn Against Loopholes in UK Online Safety Act Regarding Child Protection Source: London Daily

 

A number of child protection agencies and charities including NSPCC and Barnardo’s highlighted what they describe as an 'unacceptable loophole' that could allow encrypted messaging services to evade responsibility for removing illegal content. 

The loophole arises from the fact that person to person messaging is not fully covered by the legislation and the charities are raising their concerns about the dangers of encypted person to person messaging.

Putting controls in place for this sort of communications will be challenging and only time will tell how this and other encrypted technology might be controlled.

Read the full story here.