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The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has published its Annual Report for 2024, marking a 112-year-record for cinema film submissions. The report reveals significant achievements in advancing audience protection and delivering trusted age ratings across cinema, packaged media and video on demand (VOD) and streaming services, as well as pioneering developments in the use of AI for content classification.

Cinema classifications

In 2024, the BBFC classified 1,256 feature films for cinema, a 13% increase from 2023, and the highest number of submissions in the organisation's history. As in previous years, the most frequently issued age rating was 15, which was applied to 41% of cinema submissions. In contrast, the 18 classification was issued to 4% of all cinema films, remaining the least common rating.

The increase came as the BBFC implemented revised Classification Guidelines in May 2024. Shaped by extensive feedback from 12,000 people across the UK, these updated Guidelines reflect shifts in audience expectations, particularly regarding the classification of sex scenes at the 12/15 border, violence across the categories, and certain depictions of drug misuse. Participants reported depictions of sexual violence as their primary concern, followed by scenes of suicide and self-harm. Additionally, this research highlighted parents' worries about the potential normalisation of bad language for young children, especially terms with sexual or misogynistic connotations.

The Guidelines research also found that BBFC age ratings remain trusted and valued by audiences, with 97% of respondents seeing a benefit to age ratings, and 90% of parents saying that they trust BBFC age ratings all or most of the time. This research is carried out every four to five years to ensure BBFC standards continue to reflect UK audience expectations.

Packaged media

While total packaged media submissions (DVD and Blu-ray) marginally declined by 1% year-on-year, the total number of minutes classified increased by 11%, reaching 176,004 in 2024, up from 158,159 in 2023. This growth was driven by a remarkable surge in anime titles, which accounted for 38% of all packaged media classifications in 2024 203 up from 25% the previous year.

Partnerships with VOD and streaming services

As part of the BBFC's mission to protect audiences and help them make informed viewing decisions, the BBFC continued to work to extend the use of its trusted age ratings on VOD and streaming services. In 2024, the BBFC worked with 35 VOD platforms and strengthened its partnerships with the UK's leading services. Last July, the BBFC announced a four-year extension of its self-rating partnership with Netflix through to 2028, meaning that Netflix will continue to carry BBFC age ratings and content advice on 100% of its UK catalogue for years to come.

The partnership, which began in 2019, allows Netflix to generate age ratings and content advice in line with BBFC standards, ensuring that its UK users have access to trusted guidance when choosing what to watch. BBFC age ratings also power Netflix's parental controls, allowing parents to limit their children's access to age-inappropriate content.

In September 2024, the BBFC announced the commencement of a pilot to establish a new self-rating partnership with Prime Video. Following the successful completion of the pilot in July 2025, Prime Video can now generate BBFC age ratings and content advice in-house, marking a major step forward in delivering clarity and protection to UK audiences. With Ofcom's forthcoming video-on-demand code on the horizon, these voluntary, best practice partnerships reflect a shared commitment to empower viewers with reliable, transparent age ratings while safeguarding children from potentially harmful content. They also address consumer demand, as according to BBFC Guidelines research, 81% of people want streaming content to be classified in line with the same standards used for cinema and packaged media.

AI and technological innovation

In 2024, the BBFC advanced its AI-powered compliance tool, CLEARD, and established BBFC Technology, a dedicated new entity to support this innovation. CLEARD has been developed in collaboration with international regulators and partners to make it easier for digital platforms to adopt BBFC age ratings quickly, accurately, and at scale. Combining compliance data with AI and machine-learning algorithms, CLEARD generates trusted, localised age ratings and content advice for use on VOD and streaming services across multiple countries from a single human compliance viewing. This means more trusted BBFC age ratings for UK audiences on more online platforms.

BBFC Technology's development of CLEARD reflects the BBFC's ongoing commitment to supporting the film and TV industry in line with its core mission of empowering UK audiences to make informed viewing decisions. This initiative will not only make BBFC age ratings more cost-effective and accessible for streaming services, but any revenue generated will be reinvested into the BBFC's statutory classification services, ultimately helping to reduce the cost of classification for the film and entertainment industry.

Natasha Kaplinsky OBE, President of the British Board of Film Classification, said:

2024 was the BBFC's 112th year of helping people across the UK view what's right for them 203 and what a remarkable year it was. We classified more cinema features than ever before, and we have made significant progress towards extending the coverage of trusted BBFC age ratings on streaming services through new deals with Prime Video and Netflix. We launched our revised Classification Guidelines 203 ensuring that the standards we apply when classifying content continue to reflect the views of UK audiences. Perhaps most exciting of all, we have continued our pioneering work with AI, ensuring that the BBFC remains at the forefront of film and digital content regulation. It has been a genuine privilege to lead the organisation at such an exciting and transformative time.

David Austin OBE, Chief Executive of the British Board of Film Classification, added:

Once again, 2024 has demonstrated the film industry's resilience and adaptability in the face of ongoing challenges. Despite disruptions to the release schedule caused by Hollywood strikes in 2023, as well as the sad news of cinema closures across the UK, it was encouraging to see such a rich and diverse selection of films reaching UK screens. From Deadpool & Wolverine to Wicked, All of Us Strangers to The Substance, 2024 offered plenty to remind us all of why we love going to the cinema. The year also saw an increase in the volume of content submitted to the BBFC for classification. We classified a total of 1,256 cinema features across 2024, which marks an all-time record and demonstrates that after more than a century of content classification, the BBFC's work remains just as vital as ever.

So most of the major tube sites have decided to implement ID verification for UK viewers. But thankfully there are still plenty of options of websites that have not yet implemented ID verification requirements. Here is a useful list of porn sites to try to find those not inflicting ID verification: toppornsites.com .

For viewers stupidly subscribing to the risk of handing over ID to watch porn I noted that many websites were promising to not keep a copy of ID data provided for verification purposes and then immediately demanding an email address that will be kept for furture visits. Surely an email address is a key piece of identity data that should not be retained.

Surely a better idea is purchase a VPN and access porn as if in a different country from the UK. For the moment all the major porn sites stil allow access via VPN. Perhaps one day this will not be 5the case when ID verification is adopted worldwide. Also not that it is up to websites whether they allow access via VPN or not. Under threat of extreme punishment they could reasonably easily one day block access from VPNs. (as the likes of BBC and Netflix already do).

Another option is to install a tor browser (the onion ring I think). See torproject.org . This is a browser that looks bery much like Firefox but obtains page data via  complicated and encrypted routing that evades censorship and country specific blocking. It is not quite as 100% succesful as a VPN but can be used to watch porn on the main porn websites.

But of course the authorities will not be very pleased by these straightforward workarounds, and they have put in place a censorship rule to prevent adult websites from themselves promoting workarounds. According to Ofcom and the BBC, platforms must not host, share or permit content that encourages the use of VPNs to get around age checks and it will be illegal for them to do so.

An Aylo spokesperson, the parent company of Pornhub said parents are advised to block VPN usage just in case, and  told the BBC that the question of VPNs was an issue for governments, adding:

We certainly do not recommend that anyone uses technology to bypass the law.'

Aylo has publicly called for effective and enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online, while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users. The United Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities demonstrably

Thankfully such censorship laws simply don't apply to websites out of Ofcom's remit so there will surely be plenty of sources of information available to workaround the dangers of ID verification for porn.

 

Update: VPNs galore

27th July 2025. From the Financial Times

The Financial Times has reported on the inevitably booming sales and downloads  of VPNs.

Proton VPN has leapfrogged ChatGPT to become the top free app in the UK, according to Apple. Proton VPN has experienced a 1800% increase in daily UK. sign-ups. NordVPN has seen 1000% increase in UK purchases.

A Proton spokesperson told Mashable:

This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy.

Ofcom has published a statement detailing how they will expect larger websites to report on how they have applied censorship rules to user content. Ofcom writes:

The decisions explained in this statement set out our final positions on our guidance on transparency reporting. Our final guidance explains when and how Ofcom will exercise its transparency powers. It is designed to provide stakeholders with information about how the transparency reporting process under the online safety regime will work in practice, including the factors Ofcom will consider when deciding what information providers must publish in their reports, how we will produce our own Ofcom transparency reports and how we will engage with stakeholders throughout the process.

The Online Safety Act makes platforms -- including social media, search, and pornography services -- legally responsible for keeping people, especially children, safe online. Certain duties in the Act apply to all regulated services, while a set of additional duties apply only to certain services. The duty to publish transparency reports only applies to providers of certain regulated services, specifically those that appear on a public register of categorised services prepared by Ofcom.

Categorised services will have to publish transparency reports according to requirements that are set out by Ofcom in transparency notices. Our draft guidance lays out our proposed approach to determining what information relevant services are required to publish in their reports, as well as information about how we will engage with services throughout the reporting process.

Ofcom is also required to produce its own transparency report that draws conclusions based on the substance of the reports produced by providers. Our draft guidance presents our proposed approach to using information from service providers transparency reports in our own report.