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Aylo the parent company of Pornhub said in a statement that it is restoring access for eligible adult users in Australia who have confirmed their age through Apple’s Australian age-verification process. Vice president of brand and community Alex Kekesi stated that the company has advocated for device-based age verification as the most effective and privacy-protecting approach to help prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content online. He added that with their recent Australian update Apple set a benchmark by enabling child safety features automatically for users who have not verified that they are adults ultimately making every phone or tablet kid-safe as a starting point. As a result today Aylo welcomes eligible age-confirmed Australian iOS users back to Pornhub according to the announcement reported across industry outlets.
The restoration follows Aylo’s decision to restrict access to its free video-sharing platforms in March 2026 ahead of the Designated Internet Services Code taking effect on March 9. According to the code adult sites must implement age-assurance measures or face penalties of up to 49.5 million dollars per breach as detailed in reports from The Guardian and local media. Aylo had argued at the time that Australia’s approach does not effectively protect minors and instead creates harms relating to data privacy and exposure to illegal content on noncompliant platforms. An eSafety Commissioner assessment from July showed that approximately 90 percent of the most-visited pornography sites by Australians had introduced age assurance at the 18-plus threshold.
Apple’s system rolled out in Australia following its United Kingdom debut allows confirmation through credit card details existing account history or scans of government-issued identification. Kekesi described the update as offering one of the strongest and hardest-to-circumvent protections currently available for helping prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content. He noted that this method means adults do not have to surrender unnecessary personal information to multiple apps and websites.
Similar restrictions by Aylo have played out in the United Kingdom France and more than 20 U.S. states where the company has cited impractical age-verification laws according to coverage in XBIZ and AVN. In the UK Ofcom opened an investigation in September into whether the Apple device-based checks qualify as highly effective under the Online Safety Act. Aylo has continued to push for operating-system-level solutions across markets while maintaining that its selective return in Australia aligns with those principles.
Prior to the March restrictions Pornhub recorded more than 74 million visits from Australia in January positioning it among the country’s most accessed websites based on analytics cited by Crikey. The partial resumption leaves users on non-Apple devices without confirmed access and it remains unclear how the eSafety Commissioner will view the development. Kekesi further stated in the announcement that Apple is demonstrating leadership with these changes and that Aylo welcomes the opportunity to work with Apple and other operating system manufacturers alike to keep kids and adults safe on all devices.
