On December 4, 2025, the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, issued its largest-ever fine under the new Online Safety Act, hitting the pornography provider AVS Group Ltd with a £1 million penalty for failing to implement robust age verification checks across its network of 18 adult websites. The Belize-registered company was also fined an additional £50,000 for not responding to Ofcom’s repeated information requests since the investigation began in July. The case has thrown a spotlight on the early impacts—and ongoing challenges—of the UK’s new online safety regime, which aims to shield children and vulnerable users from harmful digital content.
AVS’s websites, which attract millions of monthly UK visitors, were among the first to be scrutinized when the Online Safety Act’s age verification requirements came into force this summer. According to Ofcom, the company’s existing measures fell far short of what’s now legally required. "They said that they had age checks in place, but they just weren't good enough," Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s online safety group director, told Sky News. "They didn't have liveness checks, so you could hold up a photograph of somebody else and that would get you through. But that's obviously just not good enough."
Ofcom’s investigation found that AVS had not responded to any of its emails or requests for information since July—a silence that earned the company an extra £50,000 penalty. AVS now has just 72 hours from the announcement of the fine to implement what Ofcom calls "highly effective" age assurance, or it will face a further £1,000 fine for each day it remains non-compliant. The regulator’s crackdown on AVS follows similar enforcement action against other platforms: online message board 4chan was fined £20,000 in October, but has so far refused to comply, while deepfake "nudify" applications have also been penalized.
The new rules mark a significant shift in the UK’s approach to online safety. Since July, any website or app hosting adult content has been legally required to prevent underage access using stringent age verification checks. Ofcom’s latest report shows early signs of impact: 47% of children aged 8 to 17 encountered an age check when trying to access age-restricted content after the July deadline, up from 30% before. More than half of parents—58%—believe these measures are already making the internet safer for children, and 36% have noticed changes in their children’s online activity.
But while some hail the new regime as a long-overdue step, others caution that the system is far from foolproof. Critics point out that age checks are often easy to bypass with virtual private networks (VPNs), which reroute internet traffic and can make it appear as though users are accessing sites from outside the UK. Ofcom itself acknowledges a spike in VPN use from 600,000 to over 1 million people following the introduction of age checks, though the regulator says the number has since dropped and insists children are not the primary users of these workarounds.
Privacy concerns have also surfaced, with some warning that requiring users to upload facial photographs or other sensitive data to third-party age verification providers could expose them to security risks. "Some say the age verification checks are too easy to bypass, while others argue they are a security risk, as users usually have to upload a picture of their face to a third-party website," Sky News reported. The debate over how best to balance safety, privacy, and usability is far from settled.
The government, for its part, is standing firmly behind Ofcom’s enforcement efforts. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told reporters, "Since the enforcement of the Online Safety Act, platforms have finally started taking responsibility for protecting children and removing illegal and hateful content. Ofcom has the government’s full backing to use all its powers to ensure that services put users’ safety first. Keeping children safe online is this government’s and my personal priority."
Yet some experts argue that fines alone are not enough to bring about lasting change. Baroness Beeban Kidron, founder of the 5Rights Foundation, told the BBC’s Today programme that "the fines were nothing" to major tech firms. "Business disruption is everything," she said. "Unless we're prepared to use the law, they're not really doing what Parliament asked them to do. We need a whole different attitude about the level of intensity and robustness from the regulator to say— we've got the law and we're using it."
AVS Group’s parent company, TubeCorporate, is registered in Belize—a jurisdiction often used for business registrations without physical offices. The group operates a slew of well-known adult sites, including pornzog.com, txxx.com, upornia.com, hdzog.com, thegay.com, ooxxx.com, hotmovs.com, hclips.com, vjav.com, pornl.com, voyeurhit.com, manysex.com, tubepornclassic.com, shemalez.com, and others. The BBC has reached out to TubeCorporate for comment but has not received a response. Ofcom confirmed it has never heard directly from AVS at any point during its investigation.
Enforcement actions extend beyond the adult sector. Ofcom has opened investigations into 92 online services since July, prioritizing those with the largest UK audiences or the greatest potential for harm. The regulator also announced that a "major social media company"—which it did not name—is currently undergoing compliance remediation, with the possibility of formal action if improvements are not made. Ofcom said the unnamed platform had submitted inadequate risk assessments, a requirement to gauge the likelihood of illegal content such as fraud or illegal pornography appearing before users. "If they haven’t taken this seriously again then we will be going straight into enforcement," Griffiths said.
The Online Safety Act, which carries the potential for fines up to £18 million or 10% of annual revenue—and even the possibility of being shut down in the UK—was designed to end what Ofcom described as the era of "unregulated, unaccountable and often unwilling" online platforms that prioritized profits over safety. The Act is being implemented in phases, with tougher guidelines introduced this year to make the internet safer for women and girls. Ofcom has vowed to "name and shame" platforms that fail to comply, and critics continue to argue that the law needs to be further toughened to address persistent risks, especially for vulnerable groups.
Despite some high-profile resistance—such as 4chan’s refusal to pay its fine and ongoing concerns about the ease of bypassing age checks—Ofcom’s enforcement actions are, by many accounts, beginning to shift industry behavior. In October, Pornhub’s parent company reported a 77% drop in UK visitors since the new rules came into effect, a sign that at least some platforms are taking compliance seriously, even at the expense of traffic and revenue.
As 2025 draws to a close, the story of AVS’s record fine and Ofcom’s wider crackdown signals a new era in the UK’s digital landscape—one where regulators, lawmakers, companies, and users are all grappling with how best to balance openness, privacy, and protection in an increasingly online world.
