Pornhub restores Australian access after Apple adds device-level age checks

Aylo, which owns the internet's most popular porn site, blocked Australian users in March. At the time it said the age-checking requirements would not protect minors and would create data privacy risks for users required to provide personal information to sites verifying ages. Shortly after access was blocked, three virtual private network apps that allow users to appear to be outside Australia rose up the app download charts.

On Wednesday, Aylo's vice-president for brand and community, Alex Kekesi, said Pornhub would return to Australia now that Apple had implemented age-checking features at the device level in iOS. Apple rolled out its new age checks in Australia last month after a UK rollout earlier this year.

Under the requirements, people can confirm their age with Apple by using a credit card, scanning their passport, driver's licence or government ID. For existing Apple account holders, Apple can check the existing credit card on file or look at the length of time the person has held that account. Content filtering and restrictions from downloading apps identified as 18 or older are in place until a user is identified as being over 18.

Kekesi said Apple's approach 'set a benchmark by enabling child safety features automatically for users who have not verified that they are adults, ultimately, making every phone or tablet kid-safe as a starting point'. He said Aylo would restore access to Pornhub users in Australia who have confirmed their age through Apple's age-verification process.

'In our view, Apple's Australian device-level age-verification update offers one of the strongest and hardest-to-circumvent protections currently available for helping prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content,' Kekesi said. 'We congratulate Apple on their extended age requirements for Apple accounts in Australia.' He urged Apple to roll out the feature globally and for Microsoft and Google to follow suit. 'We are determined to be part of this solution and want to collaborate with government, civil society and tech partners to arrive at an effective kid-safe-by-default solution,' he said.

When Aylo blocked Australian users in March, the office of the eSafety commissioner said it was ultimately a business decision for the company. The sex worker advocacy group Scarlet Alliance warned the requirement risked having a 'chilling effect' on platforms willing to host online advertising for their services and content, and could lead to over-filtering of content, including sexual health information, due to concern about being in breach.

The rollout of the age-check on Pornhub in the UK has not been smooth. The media regulator Ofcom is investigating whether minors could still access the site. 'We are concerned that Aylo may not have conducted sufficient due diligence and testing before implementing its new age assurance process,' Ofcom said last month. 'As a result, we are concerned that Aylo's process may not be highly effective at preventing children from seeing pornography.' Aylo said it would cooperate fully with the investigation, and Apple's age-check method was one of the strongest and hardest-to-circumvent models available.

The boom in popularity of VPN apps following the code introduction in March appears to have been short-lived. The VPN apps that had rapidly entered the Top 25 downloads chart, according to Sensor Tower in March, have since slipped back out of the rankings.

Editor's Summary

Pornhub is restoring access in Australia for users who verify their age through Apple's iOS device-level age checks, after Aylo blocked the site in March over online safety codes and potential fines. The move follows Apple's Australian age-verification rollout and Aylo's calls for global adoption, while UK regulator Ofcom continues to examine whether Pornhub's age checks effectively keep minors out.