There have always been questions about how OnlyFans determines the age of its content creators, particularly when it comes to those who pop in and out of videos and photos and aren’t necessarily the leading creators themselves. Think back to that 1,057 sex romp that Bonnie Blue posted. That’s A LOT of identities that needed to be verified.
According to The Guardian, those questions were valid after Ofcom fined the platform a little more than $1 million for “failing to provide accurate information about its age checks.” Ofcom is short for The Office of Communications in the United Kingdom, which governs and regulates broadcast, telecommunications, and postal services to protect consumers and citizens. For those unaware, OnlyFans is based in London.
OnlyFans Fined $1M Over Age Verification Process
The practice in question is the technology that OnlyFans uses to verify its accounts when they’re being created. A live selfie is submitted, and through facial recognition and some advanced metrics, it determines whether the person surpasses the “challenge age.”
According to The Guardian, that term infers what the tech is looking to identify someone as, for example, 23 years old minimally. Any photo that came across and was determined to be at or older than that would move the account one step closer to being created. Anything determined to be under (between 18 and 22) would need more verification. A person has to be 18 to post content.
Ofcom discovered that OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix International, had lied about having it set at 23 when it was set at 20 and 21 between 2021 and 2024. That’s an issue because it expands the margin of error in determining a photo to be safely over the 18-year-old threshold. Having it filter out 23 and above gave a five-year buffer. At 20, the odds of someone looking a few years older than 17 are much higher.
Ofcom dropped its $1.05 million file on OnlyFans and Fenix for its failure to provide “robust fact-checking processes.” OnlyFans shared a statement with The Guardian saying they “welcome the conclusion of this process” and will readjust their age assurance measures.
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