The overhaul will change the way millions of people browse the web
The biggest change most people will notice straight away is around age verification.(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
New internet rules will come into force later this week, affecting millions of users across the country.
The Online Safety Act passed into law in 2023 with the aim of ensuring greater protection for children and adults online.
It puts a range of new duties on social media companies and search services, making them more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.
The Act will give providers new requirements to implement systems and processes to reduce risks their services are used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content when it does appear.
The biggest change most people will notice straight away is around age verification.
Ofcom’s Children’s Codes, a set of regulations designed to protect young people online, will mean sites hosting adult content like pornography will need to have “highly effective” age verification in place.
Many adult sites currently have simple boxes for users to tick and say they’re over 18 – that’s no longer good enough, according to Ofcom.
Instead, they’ll have to properly verify their users’ ages before allowing them to see adult content.
So from Friday, users visiting adult websites should be presented with a screen that offers them a few different ways to verify their age.
(Image: Shared Content Unit)
That could be by checking credit card details, checking ID or by using AI facial age estimation.
This is different to AI facial recognition.
Whereas facial recognition “recognises” a face by comparing it to an ID or to a database, facial age estimation doesn’t attempt to identify the individual.
Instead, it judges faces based on the positions of their features and other ageing traits to estimate how old a user is.
Non-compliers could face fines of up to £18m or 10% of revenue.
In very serious cases, Ofcom will have the ability to completely inhibit sites from operating in the UK.
Some websites and apps have already announced they’ll implement the changes, including the UK’s biggest pornography site PornHub, social media sites Discord and Reddit, and dating app Grindr.
Reddit is already enforcing age verification on content like self-harm, suicide and pornography.