Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: Italy will be the latest country to require age verification for porn
sites

Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2025 17:09:13 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/italy-...

Later this month, Italian citizens will have one extra step to go through
before getting on porn sites. On Friday, Italy's regulatory agency for
communications, known as AGCOM, announced an age verification system that's
meant to prevent minors from accessing websites with pornographic content.
The initial list of sites covers around 50 sites, including Pornhub, XHamster
and OnlyFans.

The new rule will require users to get verified through "certified third
parties," which could be another company, bank or mobile operator that
already has the relevant info. Once the third party verifies the user's age,
it will issue a code that grants access to the porn site. While the
legislation's stated goal is to prevent harm to minors, the age verification
process uses a "double anonymity" system to quell privacy concerns. In order
to protect user privacy, porn sites can only see if a user is of age and not
their identity, while the third-party verifier can only see the user's
identity and not the website they're trying to get on.

According to the legislation, users have to do this each time they try to get
on affected porn sites. AGCOM said the new rule goes into effect on November
12, and any porn sites that are found non-compliant could be hit with
penalties of up to 250,000 euros.

Italy is the latest in the European Union to implement age verification
rules, after France put a similar system into place in the summer. Just
outside the EU, the UK also recently introduced its own age verification
process that requires either a selfie or government ID. Since then, Pornhub
said that UK visitors to its site have plummeted 77 percent.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/italy-...
require-age-verification-for-porn-sites-170913842.html?src=rss

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