Nudify site operator fined £55,000 by Ofcom over missing age checks

The regulator Ofcom has fined the operator of an artificial intelligence "nudification" website a total of £55,000 for failing to verify that its users are adults.

The company, Itai Tech Ltd, offers tools that let people edit photographs so that the subject appears to have had their clothing removed. On Thursday, Ofcom said it had imposed a £50,000 penalty for the company's failure to put age checks in place, and a further £5,000 because it did not answer the regulator's requests for information.

The fine is only the second that Ofcom has issued under the Online Safety Act, the law that requires websites carrying pornographic material to confirm their users are over 18.

What the regulator found

Ofcom opened its investigation into Itai Tech Ltd in May. According to the regulator, the company made its website unavailable to people in the United Kingdom shortly afterwards, and Ofcom said it took that into account when setting the amount of the penalty.

The site is currently not reachable from a UK internet address. Records at Companies House show that Itai Tech Ltd has recently applied to be struck off the UK register of companies.

Suzanne Cater, Ofcom's director of enforcement, said in a statement that strong age checks to shield children from pornographic material were essential, and that the regulator would not tolerate failures. She warned that any service which did not meet its age check duties under the Online Safety Act could expect firm enforcement, including substantial fines.

Ofcom said it contacted the company about the story, and that the company did not provide a comment.

How enforcement works

Under the Online Safety Act, sites that host age restricted content have been required since 25 July to operate "highly effective age assurance", meaning methods such as facial age estimation that are robust enough to determine whether a user is over 18.

If a company refuses to pay a fine, Ofcom can pursue the money through the courts, or apply for orders requiring internet providers to block access to the service in the UK. The law allows much larger penalties in the most serious cases: Ofcom can fine a company up to £18 million or 10% of its global annual turnover, whichever figure is higher, and senior managers can face criminal liability if they ignore certain notices about child safety.

The regulator's first fine under the Act went to the online message board 4chan, which Ofcom said had failed to answer its questions about the measures needed to stop people reaching illegal content on the site. Ofcom set a deadline of 13 November for 4chan to pay its £20,000 penalty. A lawyer for the US-based company has said it does not intend to pay, and has accused the regulator of overreach and censorship.

More investigations under way

Ofcom has now opened inquiries into 20 further pornographic websites, taking the total number of sites and apps it is investigating for suspected breaches of the Online Safety Act to 76.

The enforcement push comes amid wider scrutiny of tools that generate fake nude images of real people. One of the world's most visited adult websites, Pornhub, said in October that visits from the UK had fallen by 77% since it introduced age checks.

The government has not yet brought forward legislation on the issue, but recent reporting suggests ministers may consider prohibiting nudifying and declothing applications as part of wider work on deepfake intimate image abuse. The apps have already drawn attention elsewhere in the tech world: an investigation into AI nudify tools led Apple to remove such applications from its App Store, and Meta has been urged by campaigners to do more to remove them from its own platforms.

Background: the Online Safety Act

Under the Online Safety Act 2023, according to the government's own explainer, online services that children are likely to use must prevent them from seeing the most harmful content, including pornography and material that encourages self-harm or suicide. They must also protect children from other harmful material in a way that is appropriate to their age, and assess the risks their services pose to young users. Ofcom, which took on its enforcement role under the Act, has made age assurance for adult content one of its earliest priorities.

Anyone affected by the issues in this article can contact Samaritans free on 116 123 or at samaritans.org.

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