Adult World News

So most of the major tube sites have decided to implement ID verification for UK viewers. But thankfully there are still plenty of options of websites that have not yet implemented ID verification requirements. Here is a useful list of porn sites to try to find those not inflicting ID verification: toppornsites.com .

For viewers stupidly subscribing to the risk of handing over ID to watch porn I noted that many websites were promising to not keep a copy of ID data provided for verification purposes and then immediately demanding an email address that will be kept for furture visits. Surely an email address is a key piece of identity data that should not be retained.

Surely a better idea is purchase a VPN and access porn as if in a different country from the UK. For the moment all the major porn sites stil allow access via VPN. Perhaps one day this will not be 5the case when ID verification is adopted worldwide. Also not that it is up to websites whether they allow access via VPN or not. Under threat of extreme punishment they could reasonably easily one day block access from VPNs. (as the likes of BBC and Netflix already do).

Another option is to install a tor browser (the onion ring I think). See torproject.org . This is a browser that looks bery much like Firefox but obtains page data via  complicated and encrypted routing that evades censorship and country specific blocking. It is not quite as 100% succesful as a VPN but can be used to watch porn on the main porn websites.

But of course the authorities will not be very pleased by these straightforward workarounds, and they have put in place a censorship rule to prevent adult websites from themselves promoting workarounds. According to Ofcom and the BBC, platforms must not host, share or permit content that encourages the use of VPNs to get around age checks and it will be illegal for them to do so.

An Aylo spokesperson, the parent company of Pornhub said parents are advised to block VPN usage just in case, and  told the BBC that the question of VPNs was an issue for governments, adding:

We certainly do not recommend that anyone uses technology to bypass the law.'

Aylo has publicly called for effective and enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online, while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users. The United Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities demonstrably

Thankfully such censorship laws simply don't apply to websites out of Ofcom's remit so there will surely be plenty of sources of information available to workaround the dangers of ID verification for porn.

 

Update: VPNs galore

27th July 2025. From the Financial Times

The Financial Times has reported on the inevitably booming sales and downloads  of VPNs.

Proton VPN has leapfrogged ChatGPT to become the top free app in the UK, according to Apple. Proton VPN has experienced a 1800% increase in daily UK. sign-ups. NordVPN has seen 1000% increase in UK purchases.

A Proton spokesperson told Mashable:

This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy.

A dating safety app that allows women to do background checks on men and anonymously share red flag behaviour has been hacked, exposing thousands of members' images, posts and comments.

Tea Dating Advice, a US-based women-only app with 1.6 million users, said there had been unauthorised access to 72,000 images submitted by women. Some included images of women holding photo identification for verification purposes, which Tea's own privacy policy promises are deleted immediately after authentication.

The company also admitted that an additional 59,000 images from the app showing posts, comments and direct messages from over two years ago were accessed.

France's highest court, the Council of State, hasreinstated age/identity verification rules for EU-based porn websites under the country's Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN) law, ruling in favor of the French government and against Hammy Media.

Cyprus-based Hammy Media, which operates the adult site Xhamster, challenged the application of SREN's age verification regulations to sites based in other EU countries. The Paris Administrative Court temporarily suspended enforcement of those rules, but French authorities appealed to the Council of State, which has now dismissed the company's immediate objections.

In its decision, the Council of State ruled that Hammy Media failed to demonstrate that the SREN rules would prevent the company from distributing adult content to users of legal age.

Pornhub parent company Aylo opted to block access to its sites in France rather than comply with AV requirements under SREN. When the Paris Administrative Court suspended those rules, the company reversed that move and made the sites available again. Because of the latest court decision,  Aylo has announced that it will resume blocking access.

The Daily Mail is reporting that strip clubs are dying out. Only 103 premises still exist in England, Scotland and Wales, figures suggest. This is down from around 155 in 2022.

Nick Ede, one of the UK's experts on popular culture, told MailOnline: OnlyFans has totally killed the strip club. People are now tipping sex workers and strippers using their phones, rather than slipping a 10 pound note in a thong.

It's also a clear generational thing, too. Strip clubs were seen as sleazy venues, now they are seen as old and out of touch with today's lifestyles.

The statistics, obtained by MailOnline under Freedom of Information laws, also show how standalone sex shops are vanishing. Just 42 now exist, compared to 104 in 2010.

Birmingham is the strip club capital of the country, with 21 active establishments. Meanwhile, Cardiff, Birmingham and Wolverhampton all lay claim to having the most sex shops, with four apiece.

Ofcom has commenced investigations into two pornographic services - Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC - under our age assurance enforcement programme.

Under the Online Safety Act, online services must ensure children cannot access pornographic content on their sites. In January, we wrote to online services that display or publish their own pornographic content to explain that the requirements for them to have highly effective age checks in place to protect children had come into force. We requested details of services' plans for complying, along with an implementation timeline and a named point of contact.

Encouragingly, many services confirmed that they are implementing, or have plans to implement, age assurance on around 1,300 sites. A small number of services chose to block UK users from accessing their sites, rather than putting age checks in place.

Certain services failed to respond to our request and have not taken any steps to implement highly effective age assurance to protect children from pornography.

We are today opening investigations into Itai Tech Ltd - a service which runs the nudification site Undress.cc - and Score Internet Group LLC, which runs the site Scoreland.com. Both sites appear to have no highly effective age assurance in place and are potentially in breach of the Online Safety Act and their duties to protect children from pornography. Next steps

We will provide an update on both investigations on our website in due course, along with details of any further investigations launched under this enforcement programme

 

Update: Low Scores

2nd July 2025. See article from ofcom.org.uk

Ofcom has closed its investigation of scoreland.com after the website introduced age/ID verification. The website now requires that UK users subscribe using a credit card (no debit cards) before content can be viewed. Visitors from other countries can see teaser images and can pay via several other options.

Ofcom writes:

In response to our investigation, Score Internet Group LLC have taken steps to implement highly effective age assurance to ensure compliance with their duties under Part 5 of the OSA.

As such, Ofcom is satisfied that the conduct that led to the opening of the investigation has ceased and we do not consider it appropriate to continue our investigation. We have therefore closed it without making any findings as to Score Internet's compliance with its duties, either currently or prior to its confirmation that it had taken steps to comply with the OSA.