Ms Niamh Hodnett:

Yes. The age verification measure is a mandatory measure. The online safety code has a suite of mandatory measures that have to be imposed within it. They are derived from Article 28b(3) of the audiovisual media services directive, together with the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. One of those measures has to be an age verification measure. We are requiring that the platforms would have effective age verification measures in place for access to the platforms and robust age verification measures in place for access to age-inappropriate content such as pornography or extreme or gratuitous violence. While we are not mandating what particular form, as each platform is slightly different and currently has different forms it uses for age estimation or age assurance, we are leaving it open to the platforms not as a collective but for each platform individually to decide what is the appropriate form of age verification for it to meet that obligation and then to report to us on the measures it is using in that regard.