Back in June 2022 and June 2023 Ofcom went chasing Fenix International Ltd for details on what age assurance measures were in place to ensure only adults had access to OnlyFans content. This included information on how the third party facial estimation technology worked on OnlyFans and other steps to implement age checks.
The fine of £1.05 million is the result of Fenix not providing accurate and complete information about the age verification process on OnlyFans, and predates the Online Safety Act as Ofcom had powers to ask these questions and issue fines already. The investigation started under Ofcom being required to regulate video-sharing platforms.
Identifying and reporting an error
On 4 January 2024, Fenix learned from its technology provider that the challenge age for OnlyFans was in fact set at 20 years old, not 23 years old. Fenix later confirmed it had been set to age 20 since 1 November 2021. After learning this, Fenix elected to raise the challenge age to 23 on 16 January 2025, but then changed it again to 21 years old on 19 January 2025. Fenix informed Ofcom about the error on 22 January 2024.
Given this disclosure and following engagement with the company to clarify the impact of the potential breach, Ofcom launched an investigation on 1 May 2024 to review whether Fenix had failed to comply with its duties to provide complete and accurate information to the regulator.
What our investigation found
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 expects that robust checks are in place to ensure information is properly interrogated, crosschecked, and reviewed through appropriate channels, prior to it being submitted in response to a formal information request.
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. We believe robust fact checking processes would have resulted in the incorrect submission coming to light sooner.
Extract from Ofcom press release
The £1.05 million fine will be passed onto HM Treasury and includes a 30% discount as a result of Fenix accepting the findings and settling the case.
Test your broadband speed
Follow us on X for the latest broadband news 
Based.
Ridiculous ofcom has other things which should be a priority way above this but they don’t care about what really matters.
18 or above is classed as an adult by UK law so this whole set as 20 not 23 is complete joke.
If this is about protecting minors that is parents job.