Ofcom has fined Fenix, the parent company of OnlyFans, £1.05 million for providing inaccurate information on its age verification measures.
The fine comes in response to statutory information requests made by the independent communications regulator in June 2022 and June 2023, in which Fenix incorrectly reported the challenge age of its facial age estimation technology as 23, when it was set at 20.
The requests sought answers on how the platform was implementing age controls and, specifically, the effectiveness of OnlyFans’ third-party facial estimation technology.
Fenix’s technology works by asking a potential user to upload a live selfie, which is then used to estimate their age. If the tool estimates that the potential user’s age is above the challenge age, they can continue to create an account on the OnlyFans platform.
All users who are above the challenge age are asked to verify that they are over 18 through a secondary method.
Ofcom’s requests were part of an information gathering exercise by the U – using its powers under pre-Online Safety Act regulations – to monitor how video sharing platforms were keeping children safe online.
Firms are required by law to respond to all statutory information requests from Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way.
The information was published in a report on the first year of regulation by Ofcom in October 2022, while Fenix notified Ofcom of the error on 22 January 2024, 16 months after the report was published.
“Fenix had failed to comply with its duties to provide complete and accurate information to the regulator,” Ofcom said.
The fine, announced on Friday, includes a 30 per cent reduction following Fenix’s acceptance of its findings.
“Taking all the evidence into account, our investigation concluded that Fenix contravened its duties to provide accurate and complete information to Ofcom in response to two statutory information requests,” Ofcom said in a statement.
Ofcom said it expects robust controls to be in place to ensure that information is properly interrogated, cross-checked and reviewed through appropriate channels before it is submitted in response to a formal request for information.
“Our investigation raised a number of concerns, including that it took the company over 16 months to discover that it had provided Ofcom with inaccurate information,” it added. “We believe robust fact checking processes would have resulted in the incorrect submission coming to light sooner.”
