Pornhub asked tech platforms to enable device-level age verification
In a significant push for enhanced online safety, Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn, has reached out to major tech firms—Apple, Google, and Microsoft—urging them to adopt device-level age verification methods. This initiative, spearheaded by Aylo’s chief legal officer Anthony Penhale, criticizes current site-based age verification systems as “fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.” The letters assert that these existing measures have failed to adequately protect minors from accessing inappropriate content online, a claim supported by recent studies indicating that age verification laws in the U.S. and other countries, including the UK, Italy, and France, are ineffective and infringe upon adults’ rights to free speech.
Site-based age verification requires users to input personal information, such as government-issued IDs or facial scans, to prove their age. However, this approach has drawn criticism for being cumbersome and ineffective. In contrast, Aylo advocates for a more streamlined device-level verification system, which would involve implementing filters on individual devices to restrict access to adult content based on age. This method would allow for a one-time age verification process on the device, creating an age signal that could be communicated to websites via an API (application programming interface). Advocates like Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition support this approach, suggesting it would enhance online safety without compromising free speech.
The responses from the tech giants have been mixed. While Microsoft declined to comment, Apple referenced its ongoing efforts to enhance child online safety through age-appropriate protections on its devices. Google expressed its commitment to protecting children online but emphasized that adult content platforms like Aylo must invest in specific tools to meet legal and safety obligations. As the debate over age verification continues, Aylo’s push for device-level solutions highlights the ongoing struggle to balance online safety for minors with the rights of adults to access information freely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwQr_TJOWRs
Pornhub
‘s parent company, Aylo, has sent letters to major tech platforms urging them to
enable device-level age verification
, according to WIRED.
Anthony Penhale, chief legal officer for Aylo (which also owns RedTube and YouPorn), sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft saying in all of them that “we have found site-based age assurance approaches to be fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.”
SEE ALSO:
OnlyFans to require criminal background checks through controversial screener
Site-based age verification methods have “failed to achieve their primary objective: protecting minors from accessing age-inappropriate material online,” the letters reportedly state.
This comes soon after the latest study, which suggests that
U.S. age verification laws indeed fail
in their objective, as well as impede adults’ right to free speech.
“Site-based age verification” has been enacted in half of the
United States and other countries,
including the UK, Italy, and France. These age verification laws typically require inputting personal data, such as a government-issued ID or a facial scan, on sites with explicit content beyond a “yes or no” checkbox to ensure a visitor is over 18. (Though non-explicit websites like
YouTube
have also started implementing age verification.)
For years, Pornhub and free speech experts have advocated for device-level age verification instead, meaning blocks and filters on individual phones, tablets, or computers.
Mike Stabile, director of public affairs at the Free Speech Coalition, previously told Mashable that he
recommended device-level filters
that block all websites registered as
RTA, or “Restricted to Adults.”
“It signals to filters, whether it’s your Apple filter or Net Nanny or something like that, that this site should be blocked,” he explained.
In press releases regarding
age verification legislation
, Aylo has also advocated for device-level filters as the solution to keep minors off its and other adult websites. Now, they’re pleading with tech giants to do the same.
“We strongly advocate for device-based age assurance where users’ age is determined once on the device, and the age range can be used to create an age signal sent over an API [application programming interface] to websites,” each letter states. Aylo requested that Apple, Google, and Microsoft extend this device-based approach to web platforms.
Microsoft declined to comment to Mashable.
An Apple spokesperson linked to a
Newsroom update
from June 2025, which states that kids aged 13 to 17 will now have similar age-appropriate protections on Apple devices as those under 13 already do under Child Accounts, regardless of whether the teen’s account was set up as a Child Account or a standard Apple Account. The protections include web content filters.
The Apple spokesperson also linked to a
child online safety white paper
from February 2025, which states that, “The right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content.”
Google told Mashable that it’s “committed to protecting kids online, including by developing and deploying new age assurance tools like our Credential Manager API that can be used by websites. We don’t allow adult entertainment apps on Google Play, and certain high-risk services like Aylo will always need to invest in specific tools to meet their own legal and responsibility obligations.”
