Children use fake IDs to sell X-rated videos on OnlyFans: Girls as young as thirteen are tricking site’s age verification system to share explicit content watched by millions of adults

• Investigation by BBC found under-18s were able to set up accounts on OnlyFans
• Police and child protection services said they received reports of girls as young as 13 who say they have used the site to share explicit content of themselves
• OnlyFans said they use hi-tech measures as well as human monitoring to prevent children from sharing content and that they take the responsibility very seriously

Children as young as 13 have been able to set up accounts on subscription website OnlyFans, it has been revealed.

An investigation by the BBC found that under-18s were able to set up accounts on the adult website using fake documents or IDs belonging to older relatives.

In once instance, a 14-year-old girl was able to set up an account using her grandmother’s passport and bank details, police have said.

OnlyFans is a content subscription service, set up by an Essex-based family, which allows content creators to earn money from those who wish to pay to view their content.

The service is popular with sex workers with all the highest paid earners being women.

Other types of content on the site include fitness videos and content from celebrities and other famous content creators.

An investigation by the BBC has found that children as young as 13 are able to use OnlyFans to share explicit images on content subscription website which has millions of adult subscribers

In the last year, the company enjoyed a boost in membership numbers largely thanks to the pandemic and now has more than 120 million users worldwide.

The service has allowed many who found themselves unemployed during the pandemic to earn a lifesaving income while others have become millionaires on the platform.

However, the investigation by the BBC found that teenagers were able to set up accounts on the adult-only website using different methods.

The corporation found that one 17-year-old from the south east of England had been able to sell videos of herself performing sex acts and using sex toys on the platform.

The teenager used a fake ID to set up her account and in one week received £5,000 in payments from the site, prompting the bank to freeze her account. 

There have also been reports of underage girls participating in videos on adult accounts in the US which is against the company’s terms and conditions.

School safeguarding officers also revealed that children as young as 12 were using the site to contact other adult content creators and asking to meet up.

Meanwhile, children’s protection charity Childline told the BBC one girl had reported to them that she had been using the site since she was 13.

OnlyFans said they use state-of-the-art technology and human monitoring to prevent children under the age of 18 from sharing content and that they take the responsibility very seriously

Anonymised notes from the conversation with the child that were shared with the BBC by Childline read: ‘I don’t wanna talk about the types of pictures I post on there and I know it’s not appropriate for kids my age to be doing this, but it’s an easy way to make money.

‘Some of the girls have thousands of followers on Instagram and they must be raking it in – I wanna be just like them.’

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the UK’s national lead for child protection policing, says it is ‘increasingly clear’ that OnlyFans is being used by children. 

Mr Bailey says he is concerned about the risks children are exposing themselves to by appearing on the site. 

In the company’s terms and conditions, there is a lengthy list of restrictions on the type of content that is permitted on the site.

This includes insisting that anyone featured in content must be over 18. It also bans any content that shows or promotes offences such as sexual assault or rape. 

OnlyFans said in a statement: ‘We use a combination of state-of-the-art technology together with human monitoring and review to prevent children under the age of 18 from sharing content on OnlyFans.

‘This is something that we take very seriously. We constantly review our systems to ensure they are as robust as possible.’

It added that its systems continue to evolve as new technology becomes available to ‘help us to reduce incidences of under-18-year-olds becoming OnlyFans users’.

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