Ofcom fines fapello.com provider £630,000 for missing age checks and ignoring an information request
UK providers of pornographic content must operate highly effective age assurance and respond to Ofcom information requests on time, or face financial penalties under the Online Safety Act
Change
On 9 July 2026 Ofcom fined the provider of fapello.com £630,000 under the Online Safety Act — £600,000 for not having highly effective age assurance to keep under-18s off pornographic content, and £30,000 for failing to respond on time to a legally binding information request — and opened or expanded investigations into two further providers, eporner.com and kemono.cr.
Why it matters
The penalty enforces two distinct OSA duties a compliance function must treat separately: the substantive obligation on any provider of pornographic content to operate 'highly effective' age assurance, and the procedural obligation on any regulated service to respond to Ofcom's information requests accurately, completely and on time. The £30,000 information-request penalty stands independently of the £600,000 age-assurance penalty, and Ofcom's parallel actions — a new investigation into eporner.com's age-assurance method and an expanded information-request inquiry into kemono.cr — signal the same two standards are being applied across the regulated population, not to a single site.
Implications
- — UK providers of pornographic content must operate age assurance that meets Ofcom's 'highly effective' standard to keep under-18s off that content — Ofcom has now shown it will impose substantial financial penalties (here £600,000) for non-compliance, and geoblocking UK access after enforcement begins does not avoid the penalty for the prior failure.
- — Any online service subject to the Online Safety Act must respond to an Ofcom legally binding information request accurately, completely and on time — failure is a standalone breach carrying its own penalty (here £30,000) independent of any underlying safety-duty finding, and Ofcom is applying this consistently, including in its expanded kemono.cr inquiry.
- — Providers relying on a specific age-assurance method should reassess whether it actually meets the 'highly effective' bar rather than assuming any check suffices — Ofcom's new Bit Hive/eporner.com investigation targets exactly the adequacy of a chosen method, and cases are being prioritised by user numbers, putting higher-traffic services first in line.
Who is affected
- — UK providers of pornographic content subject to the Online Safety Act age-assurance duty
- — Any OSA-regulated online service that may receive an Ofcom legally binding information request
- — Higher-traffic adult-content services (prioritised by Ofcom on user numbers)
What to watch
- — Open investigation: Ofcom's new inquiry into Bit Hive (eporner.com) over whether its age-assurance method is highly effective — outcome will indicate where Ofcom draws the 'highly effective' line on specific methods.
- — Expanded investigation: Ofcom's widened inquiry into the kemono.cr provider now also covers alleged failure to comply with a legally binding information request.
- — Ongoing: Ofcom states it will continue to monitor fapello.com for compliance despite the provider's UK geoblock.