Adult sites brazenly 'ignore' Ofcom fines: Watchdog receives just £55k after imposing £3m fines for online safety breaches

The internet watchdog issued financial penalties on six separate companies since bringing in stricter legislation, but only one has paid up.

As part of LBC's Online Safety Day, we can reveal that over a million pounds worth of fines remain outstanding, with Ofcom bosses insisting success isn't measured through fines but instead through the "outcomes we are driving."

Ofcom has confirmed to LBC that since March last year, 30 companies have been investigated covering 96 sites, with 23 of those probes still ongoing, covering 79 sites.

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The regulator's effective age assurance law came into force last July, which made it mandatory for pornography sites to use robust age checks to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content.

Suzanne Cater, director of enforcement, told LBC: "It's important to note that we have to, by law, give [companies] at least 28 days to pay.

"So out of the penalties we have issued, one has paid. Two are interim penalties as part of broader investigations.

"Two others are still within that deadline for payment, so it hasn't passed yet. And one has not paid. But they did come into compliance."

Ms Cater added: "We don't measure success through fines and the amount we recover.

"What we do is measure our success through the outcomes that we are driving. Penalties are just one tool that we have to bring companies into compliance.

"We will take steps to recover penalties. It is obviously more challenging when services are based overseas, and we do see that a lot in the online sphere, more so than in the telecom space."

Organisations in breach include pornographic platform LLC which was hit by a £1.35million fine for not having age checks in place, plus £50,000 for failing to respond to an information request.

AVS Group, another adult site, was fined a million pounds for not having robust age checks, plus £50k for failing to respond to legally binding information requests.

Kick Online Entertainment (separate from streaming service Kick), was ordered to pay £800k for breaches around lack of age restrictions in place.

File sharing site 'im.ge' was also fined £20k for failing to respond to formal information requests, and '4chan' was also fined.

LBC understands that the only organisation to have paid up is Itai Tech, which operates the "nudification" website Undress.cc. It was ordered to pay £50,000 after Ofcom found no age-assurance methods were in place.

It was then fined a further £5,000 for failing to comply with a statutory information request.

Ms Cater said some of the organisations had not yet paid - but had changed its compliance with Ofcom's requirements.

She added: "It's still early days. We've issued about six penalties so far, totaling around £3 million. We are seeing early signs that these penalties are having an impact.

"It's important to note that we have to, by law, give the company at least 28 days to pay that penalty.

"So out of the penalties we have issued, one has paid. And we have published that on our website and made it clear that they have come into compliance in terms of paying, and they've also geoblocked the UK.

"Two are interim penalties as part of broader investigations so it's not appropriate for me to comment on those.

"Two others are still within that deadline for payment, so it hasn't passed yet, and one has not paid, but they did come into compliance, that's the AVS company.

"They have brought in highly effective age assurance. So they have complied with the duty, but they have not paid their penalty yet."

Ofcom's group director, Oliver Griffith, added: "It's important to set out that the main bits of the act only came into force last year.

"We only started the enforcement actions under a year ago, and they take time.

"What we're seeing, is we've moved six through to fines, but there'll be many more coming.

"But it's not just about fines, and what we've seen is that when we start investigations against companies, they will come into compliance."