There's less than a month to go before online pornography becomes a lot harder to watch.

From July 25, porn sites available in the UK will have to perform stringent checks to ensure visitors are aged 18 or over. 

In an attempt to stop children accessing porn, adults will have to submit ID or even have their face scanned, depending on what site they access.  

Now, major porn providers have confirmed to online regular Ofcom that they will introduce these checks by next month's deadline. 

They are PornHub, the most-visited pornographic service in the UK, BoyfriendTV, Cam4, FrolicMe, inxxx, Jerkmate, LiveHDCams, MyDirtyHobby, RedTube, Streamate, Stripchat, Tube8 and YouPorn. 

Ofcom said these 13 sites 'are happy to be named at this stage' and 'represent a broad range of pornography services accessed in the UK'. 

But other porn sites not on the list, such as XHamster and XVideos, have to comply with the rule too. 

If any fails to do so, Ofcom can impose fines and in very serious cases apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available. 




PornHub, the most-visited pornographic service in the UK, is just one website that's agreed to online age checks from next month 

According to Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's group director of online safety, making life safer online 'is one of the defining challenges of our era'. 

'Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren't suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling,' he said. 

'But for too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online.

'Now, change is happening. These age checks will bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world, without compromising access and privacy for over-18s.'

In terms of how the age checks would work, Ofcom has already listed seven methods that porn providers could use. 

Ultimately, which one they opt for is their decision, not Ofcom's, but their chosen method must be ‘highly effective' at correctly determining if a user is under 18. 

Ofcom's seven suggested strategies are photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile-network operator drugs (MNO) age checks, credit card checks, email-based age estimation, digital identity services and open banking. 

Open banking works by accessing the information a bank has on record regarding a user's age, while photo-ID matching involves uploading a verified photo-ID document, like a PDF of a passport of driving licence. 




Ofcom said these 13 sites 'are happy to be named at this stage' and 'represent a broad range of pornography services accessed in the UK'