Aylo, the parent company to some of the most popular tube sites like Pornhub, announced on Tuesday that it will restrict access to its platforms in the United Kingdom, effective February 2.
Since last year, Pornhub and other Aylo sites had complied with the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA), which mandated — among other provisions — that websites with pornographic content verify the ages of visitors before showing them content that is inappropriate for minors.
Instead of complying with OSA by verifying the ages of its users, Aylo will block access to platforms like Pornhub in the U.K. altogether; however, U.K. users who have already verified their identity will still be able to use their accounts.
“Despite the clear intent of the law to restrict minors’ access to adult content and commitment to enforcement, after 6 months of implementation, our experience strongly suggests that the OSA has failed to achieve that objective,” Aylo said in a statement. “We believe this framework in practice has diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet, and has also jeopardized the privacy and personal data of U.K. citizens.”
Ofcom, the UK regulator that enforces OSA, disagrees with Aylo’s characterization of the legislation.
“Porn services have a choice between using age checks to protect users as required under the Act, or to block access to their sites in the U.K.,” Ofcom said in a statement to TechCrunch. “There’s nothing to stop technology providers from developing solutions which work at the device level, and we would urge the industry to get on with that if they can evidence it is highly effective.”
Age verification technology has proven controversial as it rolls out across the globe. While children’s online safety is a pressing concern, privacy advocates argue that the type of cloud-based age verification methods mandated by legislation like OSA harms adults by collecting swaths of highly sensitive data.
“In other jurisdictions, Aylo has often been one of the only major platforms to comply, onl …