Australia to Enforce Age Checks on Adult Sites Starting in 2026

Australians will have to prove their age to access the adult sites starting on 9 March 2026. The eSafety Commissioner announced new rules that require adult content websites to use age verification technology to protect minors. Otherwise, the service providers will risk civil penalties in the millions.

The new rules will cover six industry codes and will apply to more than just pornography or adult sites. These regulations will also affect AI chatbots, app stores, social media, and search engines. They aim to prevent minors from seeing “lawful but awful” content, such as explicit material, along with self-harm and extreme violence.

Age assurance and estimation technologies include ID-based verification, as well as biometric authentication and the behavioural analysis of the online activity of the user. The service providers are also required to follow Australian privacy laws for legal compliance. However, privacy and data storage remain significant concerns. The federal government reviewed these systems in 2024 and discovered them to be efficient.

Reportedly, the eSafety Commissioner emphasized that service providers must test and monitor their systems over time to ensure the optimal level of accuracy. The Digital Industry Group Inc. (DIGI), an industry body whose members include global technology leaders such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple. It has praised the registration of the new eSafety codes, calling it a “major milestone” in strengthening online safety regulation. 

The new rules focus on AI chatbots that talk to users based on their preferences and training. Some of these chatbots have been found to have sexual conversations with minors, and some have promoted harmful behavior. Therefore, app stores must check the age of the user before allowing them to download apps rated 18+ and older.

As reported, Julie Inman Grant, eSafety Commissioner, states that the codes were designed to protect children from content they are “not cognitively ready to process and cannot unsee.” Research shows that one in three children in Australia first encountered pornography before the age of 13, often accidentally.

Age Checks on Pornography Expand Across the Globe

Australia follows the UK, the EU countries, and some states in the US in implementing age restrictions on online pornography. Pornography websites, such as Pornhub, have begun to employ verification techniques to mitigate against legal violations in the quest to prevent access by underage users. Despite these restrictions, loopholes remain, with some users bypassing checks through VPNs or facial recognition tricks.