Recommendation FR-20: Age Verification Online
From The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published 20 October 2022.
Recommendation
The Inquiry recommends (as originally stated in its The Internet Investigation Report, dated March 2020) that the UK government introduces legislation requiring providers of online services and social media platforms to implement more stringent age verification measures.
In brief (written by this site)
In January 2026, Kanishka Narayan, Minister answering for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, stated that the Online Safety Act "already meets the Inquiry’s recommendations on age-verification and online safety measures" by requiring regulated services to apply age assurance to protect children from harmful content (Kanishka Narayan, Jan 2026). HM Government previously reported in April 2025 that it had completed a feasibility study on testing age assurance tools and was monitoring whether further intervention was needed to enforce minimum age limits on social media (Home Office, Apr 2025).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
We accept the need to protect children from harmful and age-inappropriate content. The Online Safety Bill requires all in-scope companies to assess whether their service is likely to be accessed by children and, if so, deliver safety measures for them.
Delivery
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology says completed (21 January 2026)
The Online Safety Act already meets the Inquiry’s recommendations on age-verification and online safety measures. The child safety duties require regulated services to implement highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing the most harmful content, including pornography, and implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other legal but harmful material such as bullying or violent content.
Site note: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology written answer of 21 January 2026. The department states that the Online Safety Act already meets the recommendation; the row is marked completed on the department's own words.
UK Government says in progress (9 April 2025)
The Government will take the following steps in response: The Government has recently completed a study exploring the feasibility of opening up datasets for the training and testing of age assurance tools to improve their ability to determine the age of children at younger ages. Relevant findings from the study will be published shortly. We will continue to monitor whether the Online Safety Act is appropriately tackling the issue of children accessing social media below the minimum ages set in firms’ terms of service. If this is found not to be the case, we will consider what further intervention is needed to strengthen the enforcement of minimum age limits.
From: Tackling child sexual abuse: progress update (accessible version)
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- UK Government
Response, delivery statement - Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Delivery statement