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ARTICLE · 25 JULY 2025

You Must Be This Tall To Click: The Online Safety Act And Age-Appropriate Access

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As the 25 July 2025 deadline looms, the UK's Online Safety Act ("OSA") enters into a critical enforcement phase. One of the OSA's most contentious and consequential elements...

GlobalPrivacy
Terry Green
Terry Green
Larry Wong
Larry Wong
Lavinia Puder
Lavinia Puder
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As the 25 July 2025 deadline looms, the UK's Online Safety Act ("OSA") enters into a critical enforcement phase. One of the OSA's most contentious and consequential elements is the requirement of "highly effective" age assurance for adult content providers. With over 40 new rules in the 'protection of children' phase of the OSA which we discussed in our previous article and a growing list of enforcement programmes, most recently the programme into children's risk assessment duties which should be in place from 24 July 2025. Ofcom is making it clear: online platforms must act – or face serious consequences.

Failure to comply can lead to fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover, and/or court orders for business disruption measures, such as requiring internet service providers to withdraw services from, or block access to, a provider in the UK.

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