AI nudification site fined £55K for skipping age checks • The Register

The UK’s online regulator has lobbed a £50,000 fine at an AI nudification website for failing to implement mandatory age checks, potentially allowing under-18s to waltz past the virtual velvet rope.

Ofcom said that Itai Tech Ltd – operator of the site Undress.cc, an AI-powered service that takes real photos and spits out fake nudes of whoever’s in the frame – failed to implement “highly effective age assurance” as required under the Online Safety Act’s rules designed to stop children accessing harmful pornographic content. The decision, published on November 20, also tacked on an additional £5,000 penalty for failing to comply with a statutory information request.

Ofcom noted that Itai Tech made its website unavailable to users with UK IP addresses once the investigation began, but only after the regulator had opened its case.

Alongside the fine, Ofcom said it has launched formal investigations into five other companies running around 20 pornography sites, and is expanding probe activity around additional operators that have ignored information requests.

Under the Online Safety Act, pornography providers must deploy age-assurance mechanisms that are “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair.” Ofcom has made it clear that self-declaration or basic payment card checks do not meet the standard, and that acceptable systems include photo ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile network-verified age checks, and open banking-based verification. 

As Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement, Suzanne Cater, put it, the use of “highly effective age assurance” is “non-negotiable” and excuses will not wash.

The fine against Undress.cc is only the second fine Ofcom has issued under the Online Safety Act. The first went to online message board 4chan earlier this year after the platform failed to respond to statutory information requests about how it was preventing access to illegal content.

Beyond fines, which can reach up to £18 million or 10 percent of global turnover for large platforms, the regulator can also issue service restriction and access blocking notices, effectively cutting off UK users from non-compliant sites. Ofcom now lists 76 pornography providers under investigation through its age-assurance enforcement program.

The rules also require that no pornographic content can be visible before or during the age-check process, and platforms must ensure their systems cannot be easily bypassed. In the regulator’s view, age assurance must take place before any harmful material is shown to a user, not as an afterthought.

Ofcom’s broader message to adult content publishers is simple: the old “I’m over 18, honest” checkbox isn’t going to cut it anymore. The watchdog is making it clear that sites that don’t put proper age checks in place should be ready for investigations, fines, and – if they still don’t get the hint – being blocked entirely. ®