The age-check era: what sites can ask you for, and what they can't

By Other Nights. Last checked 2 September 2026.

By Other Nights. Last checked 2 September 2026.

Since 25 July 2025, UK-accessible sites that allow pornography must check your age before showing adult content. Depending on the method a site picks, that can mean a face scan, a bank check, a credit card or photo ID. A factual events directory with no explicit media is not in that category, and reading a listing needs no upload.

What the Online Safety Act changed on 25 July 2025

The Online Safety Act's age-assurance duties became enforceable on 25 July 2025, with no grace period. Adult platforms accessible in the UK must run what the law calls highly effective age checks before adult content is visible. Fines run up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue.

Ofcom's guidance for users confirms the scope: "all sites and apps that allow pornography will need to have strong age checks in place". Ofcom also expects the riskiest services to use strong age checks for suicide, self-harm and eating-disorder content. A factual events directory with no explicit media sits in neither named category.

Do you have to upload ID to adult sites in the UK?

Not necessarily ID, but you do have to pass whichever check the site chooses to offer. Ofcom's user guidance lists seven methods, and each asks for something different.

Both columns come from Ofcom's user guidance, checked 2 September 2026. Which method you meet depends on the site: the law demands a highly effective check, not a particular one.

Two things do not count. As summarised in Other Nights's own engineering brief, citing Ofcom: simple self-declaration is explicitly not accepted as highly effective age assurance, and neither is a payment that does not itself require the payer to be 18 or over.

Data protection around the checks is regulated by the ICO rather than Ofcom, and Ofcom says providers should run checks in a way that protects privacy. Its guidance still tells users they "should exercise a degree of caution and judgement when giving over personal information", which is the regulator's own wording.

What FetLife and other platforms now ask for

FetLife announced changes for UK accounts on X ahead of the 25 July 2025 deadline, in a post that begins "On July 25th, 2025, the UK Online Safety Act goes...". Beyond that, its site and help pages block automated access, so we cannot state which methods it uses or who processes the data. During our research sweep on 1 and 2 September 2026, FetLife's Trustpilot rating stood at 1.4 out of 5, with multiple 2026 reviews describing lockouts and a one-star review from 14 January 2026 complaining that the platform deleted an old account over forced ID verification.

FabSwingers' homepage tells visitors that "FabSwingers is only for adults aged 18 or older (or 21 years or older where 18 is not the age of majority)", and names no verification method. Third-party guides, including VPNOverview, describe its UK check as requiring government-approved ID, credit card data, or a selfie since 25 July 2025. Treat that as second-hand: the site's own help and FAQ pages were unreachable when we checked, so its own wording is unavailable.

SwingHub publishes the most detail of the three. Its terms and conditions spell the process out: "All users must submit a valid government-issued photographic identification document together with a live selfie image captured through the Services." The same terms state that "SwingHub may utilise artificial intelligence (\"AI\") technology during the verification process to assist in analysing submitted images and identity documentation for the purposes of identity matching, age estimation, fraud prevention and platform safety", and they allow identity documents and biometric information to be processed by outside providers. A couple's account requires both people to go through it: "If you are registering a couple's account both individuals must complete the verification process and appear together where requested during the identity verification procedure." Existing unverified users can have access restricted or suspended until they verify. How long SwingHub or its providers keep those documents, and whether the requirement applies outside the UK, is not stated in the terms we read.

How people feel about handing over ID

Ipsos polled 2,196 GB adults aged 16 and over between 1 and 5 August 2025. In principle the checks are popular: 69% support age checks on platforms hosting harmful content. Willingness drops once documents enter the picture. "Just 19% say they would be willing to submit proof of age for dating apps", the pollster reported. 61% expect the regime to lead to personal data being compromised, and 72% are unlikely to use their banking information to prove their age.

Figures from the same Ipsos poll, fieldwork 1 to 5 August 2025, checked 2 September 2026.

What the checks have done so far

HuffPost UK reported the behavioural fallout on 31 July 2026. VPN apps topped Apple's UK App Store within three days of 25 July 2025, and VPN use had more than doubled by December 2025. Pornhub, by HuffPost's account, reported a 77% drop in UK visitors. The same reporting describes adults, especially over-50s, avoiding legal content out of privacy fear. Those numbers are recorded here as fallout. This article gives no guidance on getting around the checks.

The Act had already closed smaller places before the age wall arrived. Its illegal-content duties took effect on 17 March 2025, and LFGSS shut on 16 March 2025, the day before enforcement. Its hosting service, Microcosm, took roughly 300 community sites down with it, citing personal liability. The In Memoriam page at onlinesafetyact.co.uk lists 24 closed or UK-geo-blocked sites, including furry.energy, an LGBTQ Mastodon server with 49 users.

Reading an event listing needs none of this

Other Nights's position here is a design decision, not legal advice. The site hosts no adult media. Our provisional read is that a curated events directory with internal search sits outside the Act's Part 5 and user-to-user categories in its current version, which is why v1 ships a self-declared age confirmation rather than an ID wall. The engineering brief behind that read is itself marked not legal advice, and neither is this article. In practical terms, a factual event listing with no explicit media requires no upload of any kind.

If a future feature ever needs real age assurance, the architecture rule is already written down: "Never store a date of birth, an identity document, or a face image. Store a boolean and an expiry, keyed to a session." Only a yes-or-no result with an expiry is ever kept.

The discovery product does not collect, infer or store sexual preferences or orientation, attendance or intent to attend, precise location, identity documents, dates of birth, card data, or real names. An email address is collected only if you choose an account, along with any series and searches you save. Reading listings needs no account at all.

The index currently publishes 169 event series across 24 UK towns and cities: 130 club nights, 21 play-focused events, 15 socials, plus a class, a festival and a market. Every listing carries a last-verified date, and the most recent verification pass ran on 1 September 2026. You can browse the London listings, the kink and BDSM nights in London or the couples nights (lifestyle) in London without logging in, and look up what a beginner-friendly meet-up in a pub (munch) means in the glossary. Individual listings such as Klub Verboten's Verboten Social or Le Boudoir's Thirsty Thursdays open the same way. Each listing page is public and links out to the organiser.

Sources and what we checked

• Ofcom, Age checks for online safety: what you need to know as a user. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/age-checks-for-online-safety--what-you-need-to-know-as-a-user. Checked 2 September 2026.
• National Law Review on the enforcement date and penalties. https://natlawreview.com/article/you-must-be-tall-click-online-safety-act-and-age-appropriate-access. Checked 2 September 2026.
• Ipsos, Britons back Online Safety Act's age checks, but are sceptical of effectiveness and unwilling to share ID. Fieldwork 1 to 5 August 2025, 2,196 GB adults aged 16 and over. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-age-checks-are-sceptical-effectiveness-and-unwilling-share-id. Checked 2 September 2026.
• FetLife's announcement on X, reachable only as a snippet. https://x.com/FetLife/status/1940078318532870353. Checked 2 September 2026.
• Trustpilot reviews of FetLife. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/fetlife.com. Observed during a 1 to 2 September 2026 research sweep; the 1.4 rating was not re-verified live today.
• FabSwingers homepage. https://www.fabswingers.com/. Checked 2 September 2026. Its help and FAQ pages returned errors, so no first-party wording on methods exists here.
• VPNOverview's third-party description of FabSwingers' UK checks. https://vpnoverview.com/unblocking/censorship/how-to-bypass-fabswingers-age-verification/. Checked 2 September 2026. Second-hand, and treated as such above.
• SwingHub, Terms and Conditions. https://swinghub.com/pages/terms-and-conditions. Checked 2 September 2026. Retention periods not stated.
• HuffPost UK on behavioural fallout, 31 July 2026. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-age-verification-laws-sexual-shame_uk_6a6cac72e4b07f39e667673a. Checked 2 September 2026. The Pornhub figure is HuffPost's reporting; we did not reach a primary source.
• LFGSS closure thread, https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/; OnlineSafetyAct.co.uk In Memoriam, https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/in_memoriam/; Open Rights Group, https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/save-our-sites-deadline-17-march/. Checked 2 September 2026.
• Other Nights engineering brief on age assurance, internal document 02-technical/09-age-assurance-and-platform-constraints.md, sources retrieved 27 August 2026. Explicitly not legal advice.
• Other Nights live index, queried 2 September 2026; listings last verified 1 September 2026.

What we could not verify: FetLife's current method list, verification provider and retention terms; FabSwingers' own published wording for its options; how long SwingHub or its providers retain documents and biometric data, and whether its requirement is UK-specific; which verification vendor any of the three platforms uses; and whether any UK platform has yet been fined under the age-assurance duties. Where a fact could not be reached first-hand, the text above says so.