The Christian social policy charity CARE has written to Ofcom over what it claims is a “potentially misleading” report on age assurance compliance.

CARE has found that only 44 out of 100 pornographic websites in the UK are deploying effective age verification measures, a year after the measures were introduced. This is in contrast to an Ofcom report on 15 July which stated that 64 of the top 100 pornographic websites in the UK were deploying age assurance measures, with a further 10 geo-blocking UK users.

The charity said this shows “alarming disparity” between its findings and the regulator's own report.

In a letter to Ofcom's Chief Executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, CARE’s Chief Executive Ross Hendry wrote: "In our audit, we found that 70 sites had implemented some form of age verification measure. Yet only 44 of these were classified as providing Highly Effective Age Assurance. The remaining 26 were either using illegitimate and inadequate methods for verifying the user's age or, most notably, exposed users to explicit thumbnails, advertisements, titles and/or tags prior to any age gate."

CARE's research, which was conducted between 9 and 16 July also found that 30 sites weren’t offering any age assurance controls at all, in clear breach of the law.

Urging Ofcom to “clear up any potential misrepresentation as soon as possible”, Hendry said he feared that the regulator’s report “may have been misleading because it gives the impression of much stronger compliance than is really the case. The public and Parliament need to know that there is a material difference between providing highly effective age gates and simply providing some form of age controls. The former is surely the standard we must require from all pornographic sites, rather than being satisfied with some age verification being in place."

An Ofcom spokesperson told Premier Christian News: “We are confident in our findings, which are broadly consistent with CARE’s report, that around two thirds of the top 100 most popular porn sites in the UK have age checks in place. We also agree with CARE - and make very clear in our own report - that not all age checks will necessarily prove highly effective in practice, which is where our enforcement programme comes in. 

"We are currently assessing porn services’ compliance with their duties to protect children – which includes determining the effectiveness of their age checks. We’ve shown we won’t hesitate to act if they fall short, and so far have launched investigations into nearly 90 porn sites and issued £6 million in fines.”