UK Regulator Fines OnlyFans $1.4M Over Age Verification Issues
(Reuters) -Britain's media and telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, on Thursday fined OnlyFans, an adults-only website and social media platform, 1.05 million pounds ($1.4 million) over failures to correctly disclose information related to measures to check age.
OnlyFans' operator, Fenix International Limited, had failed to provide accurate information over how it was implementing age checks and how effective OnlyFans' third-party facial estimation technology was, the watchdog said.
Last month, Ofcom closed its investigation into whether people under the age of 18 are accessing OnlyFans but had said that it will continue to probe the accuracy of information given by the platform when requested, which it has also now concluded.
With $1.3 billion in revenue and more than 300 million users, OnlyFans has fused sex work with the online creator economy so successfully that it has branched out into comedy, music and motor-racing.
Ofcom said its investigation found that OnlyFans had told the regulator that its technology to use live selfies submitted by users to estimate their age had a "challenger age" of 23 years old, when instead it was set at 20 years.
Fenix notified the regulator of its error in disclosing the age last year, Ofcom said, adding that the company had elected to raise the threshold to 23 years in January 2025, but lowered it to 21 years within a few days.
"Receiving accurate and complete information is fundamental for Ofcom to do its job as a regulator and to understand and monitor how platforms are operating," its enforcement director, Suzanne Cater, said in a statement.
"We will hold platforms to high standards and will not hesitate to take enforcement action where we find failings."
A spokesperson for OnlyFans welcomed the regulator's decision to close the investigation related to UK onboarding, and said the platform "recognises the importance of providing Ofcom with accurate and timely information".
($1 = 0.7742 pounds)
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Anandita Mehrotra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and David Evans)
