Ofcom breached the Online Security Act with a negligible fine

Saturday 06 December 2025 13:19

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Ofcom has issued its first major penalty under the Online Safety Act, and it’s aimed directly at AVS Group Ltd, a little-known network of adult sites registered to virtual mailboxes in Belize.

The regulator fined the company £1 million on Thursday for failing to implement mandatory age checks on its 18 adult sites, then added a further £50,000 after the company failed to respond to a legal notice.

This is Ofcom’s attempt to show that the new law comes into force from day one.

Rather than wait for a fight with big companies in Silicon Valley, regulators have targeted companies that broadcast in the UK, ignore the demands of the law and do not offer a functioning age verification system.

Simple case, used to transmit wider signals

AVS now have 72 hours to implement “highly effective” age checks, or face rising bills of £1,300 for every day they do not comply.

The continued non-involvement gives Ofcom the option of applying for a court order, cutting off the company’s payment providers, or, in the most extreme, forcing UK internet providers to block the site completely.

After months of denials over the risks of censorship, patchy compliance, VPN workarounds and platforms rushing to age-restrict innocuous content, Ofcom wants to show that the Act is not a paper exercise.

Oliver Griffiths, the company’s head of online security, said the move showed “the tide is turning”, a message aimed both at the big platforms and at unknown offshore operators.

But the wider landscape is proving to be a bit more complicated.

One unnamed global social media platform is undertaking formal remediation with Ofcom. Deepfake “nudify” app has been fined. 4Chan has refused to pay a £20,000 fine and is challenging the regulator in court. Wikipedia has warned that the law could undermine its volunteer-driven model.

Even ministers complained about the slow implementation of this bill, and criticized the bill as “not working as expected”, and full enforcement of the law is not expected to be implemented until 2026.

But its workload is no small feat, with thousands of mid-tier platforms, adult sites, foreign forums and semi-anonymous apps now falling under its purview.

Many of them have no presence in the UK, have little legal expertise, or, like AVS, have no interest in answering compliance emails.

Meanwhile, age verification itself is under scrutiny.

Searches for “how to get around age verification” surged more than 450,000 percent after the law was passed, and Pornhub reports a 77 percent drop in UK traffic since implementing checks.

A growing market of ID verification companies, including Yoti, whose revenue increased 55 percent, is emerging to meet the demand.

However, privacy advocates warn that centralized storage of passports, selfies and facial scans introduces new risks in the process.

By singling out non-compliant people, Ofcom sets benchmarks. Whether this move is successful in alerting the industry to the bill’s enforcement remains to be seen.