Draft guidance from Ofcom proposes that the faces of those who access pornography online could be scanned to ascertain that they are of the legal age limit, with additional validation of young-looking individuals.
The watchdog has proposed several measures which would stop children from accessing explicit material.
According to a survey, the age at which children initially encounter pornography is thirteen on average.
Privacy advocates have refuted the proposals, expressing fear of "catastrophic" repercussions should information from age verifications be exposed.
A substantial portion of the British populace watch web-based porn - near fourteen million people, as revealed by a recent Ofcom survey - and a fifth of them view it during their working time.
The Children's Commissioner's survey showed that one out of every ten children were exposed to online pornography by the age of nine, raising worries about their accessibility to such explicit websites.
Legislation known as the Online Safety Act, recently passed into law, necessitates social media platforms and search engines to shield minors from dangerous material found on the internet.
Ofcom will back up its authority to enforce this with the power to impose hefty penalties for any companies that do not adhere.
Ofcom have declared their expectation for companies to abide by the new regulations when they come into effect in 2025, requiring age verifications to be "extremely efficient in correctly identifying if a certain individual is a child or not".
Verification measures have to be more rigorous than just clicking a button to assert you are of legal age.
Possible methods might be:
Technology for facial age estimation is a possible option that could scan faces of users to determine if they are of legal age.
The regulator has proposed that websites relying on technological means to determine a user's age should contemplate requesting further confirmation if the user appears to have an age that could be considered "challenging". This practice is analogous to what numerous stores do when selling alcoholic drinks to a person who looks to be under 25, by seeking a form of identification.
Ofcom acknowledges that any age verification technique is liable to be circumvented, nonetheless, websites must be mindful of basic methods.
Systems that compare a photo ID (like a passport) with a user's face should conduct a "liveness check" to help protect against minors using someone else's bogus or fake ID, along with an image of a person of advanced age, to deceive the system.
Those engaging in sex education with young adults shared with the BBC that they felt the implementation of safeguards would help guard against minors viewing pornography.
Jack Liepa, the director of the charity Sexpression, hailing the Online Safety Act as a positive step, noted that their charity sends university students into schools to run workshops on sex and relationships.
Age-checks would not rid people of the necessity to receive education about how porn misrepresents sex, objectifies women, and neglects the issue of consent, Mr. Liepa and other student volunteers associated with the charity explained to the BBC.
Youth are likely to get their hands on this material: older siblings could provide access, and they will eventually reach 18 and thus have access, even at a tender impressionable age.
Mr Liepa suggested that they could not simply deal with the matter by taking the act.
Some have expressed concern that, when prevented from accessing mainstream porn websites, some young people may venture to riskier, ungoverned sites to view pornographic content.
Adults using pornography have their largest fear being the security of their information when providing proof of age, asserts Ofcom.
The draft guidance stipulates that sites must adhere to the regulations concerning data protection established by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - the privacy guardian.
However, Abigail Burke of the Open Rights Group campaigning body highlighted a lack of emphasis on data security.
She expressed that the outcomes of having data exposed could be ruinous and may involve intimidation, deception, damaging personal relationships, and publicly revealing an individual's sexual preferences in vulnerable situations.
Ms Burke expressed deep concern that Ofcom was relying entirely on laws concerning data protection and the Information Commissioner's Office to make sure that privacy was secure.
She informed the BBC that, due to the large amount of confidential material that may be managed, strong and explicit privacy regulations are essential.
Codes of practice for dealing with pornography on social media platforms will be made available by the year 2024.
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