Online age verification legislation
IICSA · The Internet Investigation Report · Issued 31 March 2020 · Addressed to: UK Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, J
The government should introduce legislation requiring providers of online services and social media platforms to implement more stringent age verification techniques on all relevant devices.
IICSA, The Internet Investigation Report · 31 Mar 2020 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The Online Safety Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 and requires in-scope companies to assess whether their services are likely to be accessed by children and to deliver safety measures including age verification (Online Safety Act 2023, s.11-12).
- In May 2023, the government stated that this recommendation had been completed through the Online Safety Act (Government Response to IICSA Final Report, HM Government, May 2023).
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
On 12 May 2021, the UK government published a draft Online Safety Bill, which includes a clause that will require providers of regulated services to conduct an assessment of whether children are likely to access their service. On 29 June 2021, the UK government published online safety guidance. The guidance included advice for companies on providing an age-appropriate experience for children through using tools such as age assurance and verification methods. On 8 February 2022, the UK government announced that the Online Safety Bill will include a new legal duty that requires all sites hosting pornographic material to have age verification technology. Companies will be fined for not complying and senior managers could be held criminally liable. A second Inquiry recommendation on the need for age verification techniques online was made (see row 107).
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
No published activity has been recorded against this recommendation yet.
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.