Ofcom fined 6 sites on age checks. Most got an extra fine for ignoring its letters.
Ofcom, the UK media regulator, updated 2 of its open child-safety investigations on 20 August. Its open cases now cover dozens of sites and apps.
What happened
Ofcom updates its open Online Safety Act investigations into the providers of Chat-Avenue and Teen-Chat, part of an enforcement caseload covering dozens of sites and apps.
Ofcom, the UK media regulator, updated its investigations into two chat services, Chat-Avenue and Teen-Chat, on . It is looking at the risk of adults grooming children on them and at children seeing pornography. Both cases opened in and neither has a decision yet.
Ofcom has now made six penalty decisions on age checks. The first was Itai Tech in . The latest was the company behind fapello.com, fined £630,000 in . All six are adult sites or small fringe forums, and several blocked UK users instead of adding age checks.
The open question is size. In Ofcom opened an investigation into TikTok’s age checks, the first such case against a platform with a large UK audience. Ofcom said the way TikTok guesses users’ ages may be missing a large share of children.
The rules are the same for big and small cases. Ofcom decides alone under the Online Safety Act 2023. No minister signs off, there is no set outcome, and the company’s only way out is an appeal. What changes is the size of the legal team on the other side and the top fine: £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
Sources: Ofcom (2), The Guardian
The Pattern
Ofcom has published six age-check fines since the rules began. We looked at all of them, from , when the duties took effect, to , one for each company fined. For each we asked the question the first market asks: did Ofcom add a separate fine because the company did not answer its legal requests for information? Fines under other rules, and open cases with no decision yet, are left out.
Show the other 4 cases
The Read
History points to more small fines soon and no TikTok decision before spring. Ofcom made six age-check decisions in thirteen months and has a queue of open cases. Several are against companies that have already refused to deal with it, and those cases produce the fastest decisions. The extra fine for ignoring Ofcom’s letters came in five of the six because the same companies that skip age checks also skip the regulator’s letters.
That is also the weak spot. None of it tells us much about a company that answers letters and can go to court. Ofcom also has a reason to make an example of a big service. The rules only work if they reach the platforms children really use, and Ofcom has already shown with its £28 million fine on Virgin Media O2 that it will set a fine that hurts a major UK business. If a TikTok decision comes, the top fine is a share of global revenue, and these decisions will look very different.
The next published age-check fine will answer the first question. If it goes to another small site, history says it will most likely carry the second fine too.
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