Ofcom fines OnlyFans owner more than £1m

(Sharecast News) - The owner of OnlyFans has been fined more than £1m after it supplied Ofcom inaccurate data, it was confirmed on Thursday. The media watchdog said it had fined Fenix International £1.05m for failing to accurately respond to formal requests for information about its age assurance measures.

The original fine was higher, but was reduced by 30% after Fenix accepted Ofcom's findings and settled the case.

Suzanne Carter, Ofcom's enforcement director, said: "When we use our statutory powers to request information from platforms, they are required, by law, to ensure it is complete, accurate and delivered to us on time.

"We will hold platforms to high stands and will not hesitate to take enforcement action where we find failings."

Ofcom started investigating the platform in May 2024, after a series of failings regarding its age verification processes. Users must be 18 to access OnlyFans, which is known primarily for its pornographic content.

Ofcom had requested in June 2022 and in June 2023 information about age assurance measures. Fenix said it had directed its third-party provider to set a "challenge age" for facial estimation technology at 23 years old. Challenge ages are used to account for any potential error in age estimates.

However, in January 2024, Fenix was told by the provider that the challenge age was in fact set at 20 years old, and not 23. It then emerged it had been set at that age since November 2021.

Fenix did elect to raise the challenge age to 23 a year later, on 16 January 2025, only to then change it again, to 21, on 19 January.

The regulator said: "Taking all the evidence into account, our investigation concluded that Fenix contravened its duties to provide accurate and complete information to Ofcom in response to two statutory information requests.

"Our investigation raised a number of concerns, including that it took the company over 16 months to discover it had provided Ofcom with inaccurate information."

Fenix, which is majority-owned by Ukrainian-American businessman Leonid Radvinsky, did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

OnlyFans has surged in popularity in recent years, with revenues in the year to 30 November 2023 - the most recently available accounts - coming at $1.3bn, a 20% jump on 2022. Pre-tax profits were $658m.