LONDON – British regulators have opened an investigation into age-verification measures at OnlyFans and whether the company has appropriate protections in place to stop underage users from accessing porn.

“We have grounds to suspect the platform did not implement its age verification measures in such a way as to sufficiently protect under-18s from pornographic material,” Britain’s Office of Communications, or Ofcom, said in a statement on May 1.

“We are also investigating whether OnlyFans failed to comply with its duties to provide complete and accurate information in response to these statutory requests.”

A representative for OnlyFans said the company requires all of its users to provide name and payment card details and verify their age using a third-party “age-assurance provider”.

A configuration issue with the provider led to a reporting error, though the age threshold was always set above 18 years, OnlyFans said.

OnlyFans, founded in 2016, has had a fraught relationship with adult content.

The subscription-based site requires users to be 18 years old or older and hosts creators who post racy photos and videos and nudity along with more standard fare, such as cooking, comedy and celebrity content.

The London-based company threatened to ban sexually explicit material in 2021, blaming conflicts with banking service providers, before reversing the plan after an uproar from its creators.

An investigation by the BBC that year found underage users selling and appearing in sexually explicit videos after using fake identification to set up accounts.

OnlyFans has previously said it has workers dedicated to reviewing content and monitors the site for child sexual abuse material. Content creators must provide a date of birth on a government-issued identification. BLOOMBERG