Pornhub Restores UK Sign-Ups Using Apple’s Device-Level Age Check

Pornhub’s parent company Aylo is reopening its platforms to new users in the UK, but only for those who verify their age using Apple’s built-in system on iOS. The move partially reverses Aylo’s earlier decision to lock out unverified UK users in protest over the country’s approach to age checks under the Online Safety Act.

Aylo said in a press release that Apple’s age-verification feature is now being used to grant access to its adult platforms in the UK, including Pornhub, YouPorn and Redtube. New users in the country can once again sign up and view content if they prove they are adults via an Apple device.

Apple introduced its age-verification tool as part of iOS 26.4 earlier this year. According to Aylo’s description of the system, adults can confirm their age either by using a credit card or submitting a government-issued ID, such as a driver’s licence or passport.

In its statement, Aylo praised Apple’s approach as “the most effective and privacy-protecting” method currently available to keep minors away from adult material online. The company said that Apple’s device-level update in the UK offers “one of the strongest and hardest to circumvent protections” on the market for limiting access to age-inappropriate content.

This endorsement marks a notable shift in Aylo’s strategy. Earlier in the year, the company responded to the UK’s legal framework by restricting access to all of its platforms for new, unverified users in the country. Only users who had already completed an age check could continue to access sites such as Pornhub.

Aylo’s earlier block was a direct reaction to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA), which took effect last summer. The company argued that the law was not adequately protecting minors and called it a “failed system,” declining to take part beyond limiting access to previously verified users.

The OSA places greater responsibility on platforms, including social media services and search engines, to shield users from harmful online content. A key objective is to reduce children’s exposure to pornography and materials linked to self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

One of the law’s core requirements is that pornography platforms and sites hosting user-uploaded material deploy technology to verify or estimate a user’s age. In practice, that has often translated into systems that ask people to upload a government ID or a selfie to demonstrate they meet minimum age thresholds.

However, those rules and technologies have been easy to evade in some cases. Users have turned to virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their location and sidestep enforcement. Some AI-based age-estimation tools have reportedly been fooled by simple tricks, including users drawing fake moustaches to appear older in images.

A report from online safety organisation Internet Matters, based on 1,000 children in the UK, found that more than a third had learned how to bypass age checks. The scale of workarounds has fuelled political debate in Britain, with at least one lawmaker calling for tighter controls on VPN use, including potential age checks for VPN access itself.

Aylo’s decision to embrace Apple’s system fits into this landscape of contested solutions. By leaning on a device-level feature built into the iOS ecosystem, the company is effectively outsourcing verification to a platform it believes has stronger protections and is harder for minors to game.

Apple’s process, as described, relies on established credentials like payment cards or government IDs rather than facial guessing alone. While Aylo characterises that approach as more privacy-protective, details of how Apple stores or processes the data are not included in Aylo’s statement, and are not elaborated on in the available material.

Global Patchwork of Age Laws and VPN Backlash

The UK is not alone in tightening online age rules. Across the United States, roughly half of states have now adopted laws that require pornography sites to put age-verification systems in place. In response to those state-level measures, Pornhub has restricted access in several jurisdictions rather than implement local compliance mechanisms.

Lawmakers in some regions are also trying to close VPN loopholes used to dodge these requirements. In the UK, one politician has already called for stronger regulation of VPN services, including age checks. In the US, a new law in Utah taking effect this week is explicitly designed to discourage the use of VPNs to get around age-verification systems on adult sites.

Privacy advocates have raised concerns about these kinds of measures, warning that using anti-VPN rules to shore up age checks could create a precedent that is difficult to implement and potentially harmful for online privacy. The source material notes those warnings in the context of Utah’s law, but does not detail specific advocacy organisations or proposals.

For Aylo, the recalibrated UK policy suggests it is willing to reopen access when it finds an age-verification method it considers both robust and respectful of user privacy. By limiting new sign-ups in the UK to people who can verify their age on Apple hardware, the company is betting that a major platform provider can offer a more effective barrier against underage viewing than the fragmented systems emerging from legislation alone.

How regulators and other device makers respond to that bet remains to be seen. For now, UK users with compatible Apple devices get a clearer, officially sanctioned path back into Pornhub and Aylo’s other properties, while broader debates over online safety, identity checks and VPN usage continue in both the UK and the US.