Why is this service asking me to verify my age?

Why it arrived all at once

Ofcom's duties came with dated deadlines rather than a single switch-on, so services clustered their changes around them. The timeline lists every dated step, including the ones still ahead, each with its source. Where Ofcom or the ICO has opened an investigation or issued a fine, it is on the enforcement page with the amount and the date.

Why the check differs from app to app

The Act sets the duty, not the method. Each service chooses how to meet it — a selfie estimate, a photo ID, a credit card, a mobile-network check, an emailed digital ID, or an inference drawn from account signals — and most use more than one. What each method collects, and what Ofcom has said about it, is on the methods pages.

If you would rather not

The "if you decline" column above is the service's own published statement of what you lose, quoted on its service page with a source. For most partly-gated services it means the gated content stays hidden and the rest keeps working. This site does not carry advice about avoiding checks, and it never will: it records what the services and regulators publish, nothing more.

Related: what happens to your ID once you have handed it over and what the check actually looks like on each service.

This directory publishes information about companies, not individuals. It does not process personal data of people who verify their age.