A U.K. law requiring pornography websites to verify the age of their users took effect Friday. The BBC reports that about 6,000 porn sites will start verifying users’ ages to comply with the Online Safety Act, although at least one major site was not requiring age checks as of Friday morning.
The law mandates online platforms to prevent children from accessing harmful content, prompting sites like Reddit, Bluesky, X, and Grindr to also ask U.K. users to verify their age through methods such as selfies or government-issued IDs.
This legislation is part of a wider trend of child protection laws that may lead to broader online age checks. Critics, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, highlight concerns about online privacy and anonymity. A recent breach involving the dating app Tea revealed security risks tied to the uploading of selfies and IDs for verification.
Some internet users might attempt to bypass age verification using fake IDs, images of video game characters, or VPNs.
