Statement: Aylo Withdrawal from UK Market
The Age Check Certification Scheme notes Aylo’s announcement that it will restrict access to its services for new UK users from February 2026, citing failures in the operation of the Online Safety Act. From the perspective of age assurance capability, Aylo’s position is clear: age assurance can be delivered, can be delivered effectively, and was […]
The Age Check Certification Scheme notes Aylo’s announcement that it will restrict access to its services for new UK users from February 2026, citing failures in the operation of the Online Safety Act.
From the perspective of age assurance capability, Aylo’s position is clear: age assurance can be delivered, can be delivered effectively, and was being delivered by responsible operators who chose to implement compliant solutions.
Aylo introduced age assurance measures when it came into scope of the Act and maintains that these systems demonstrated that practical, privacy-preserving age checks are technically feasible at scale. In this regard, the company does not argue that age assurance is unworkable; rather, it argues that it has been undermined by inconsistent enforcement and by legislative and regulatory frameworks that allow widespread non-compliance by other providers.
Aylo’s position is therefore not that age assurance is impossible, but that it has been rendered ineffective in practice by:
uneven application of regulatory obligations,
poor market coverage of age assurance requirements, and
the continued availability of non-compliant services that face little or no consequence.
In Aylo’s assessment, this has created a perverse outcome: compliant platforms implementing age checks see traffic diverted to non-compliant platforms, while minors and adults alike are exposed to less moderated and potentially harmful content. They characterise themselves not as opponents of age assurance, but as victims of weak enforcement and flawed legislative design.
The Age Check Certification Scheme recognises that this position reinforces an important principle: the effectiveness of age assurance depends not only on technology, but on consistent application across the market. Where only a subset of providers implement age checks, the protective value of those systems is diluted.
This episode underlines the need for:
clear statutory expectations,
enforceable obligations across all relevant services, and
certified, privacy-respecting age assurance solutions that can be deployed uniformly.
Age assurance is not the failure described by Aylo; rather, their statement asserts that partial and inconsistent implementation is the failure. The Scheme remains of the view that properly specified, independently certified age assurance can play a central role in protecting children online, provided it is supported by coherent law and credible enforcement.