Age Verification

Last updated: 21 July 2026

Why we check your age

Where Silver Footfalls publishes sexually explicit stories, we check your age before you can view them. Under the UK Online Safety Act 2023, a service that publishes pornographic content must use age assurance that is highly effective at confirming that users are not children. This is more than a warning or a tick-box. Similar requirements apply in the EU and in a growing number of US states, so we apply the age check to that content rather than blocking particular countries.

The difference between a warning and an age check

You may see two different things on the Site, and they do different jobs:

• A content warning. This tells you a page contains mature or explicit material and lets you choose whether to continue. It is not an age check — it just informs you.
• The age check. This is the real check required by law. It uses a trusted method to confirm you are 18 or over. Simply confirming a date of birth, ticking “I am 18”, or paying with a card is not enough on its own, and we do not rely on those as the age check.

How the age check works

We use a specialist third-party age-verification provider. When you first try to access adult content, the provider confirms your age using a method that meets the legal standard. The provider tells us only whether you are over 18 — a simple yes or no. Any image or information you provide goes to the provider, not to us, and we do not store identity documents. How this data is handled is set out in our Privacy Policy.

Summary of our age-assurance methods

This is a summary of the age assurance we use, published so you can see how we keep the adult content adults-only:

• Method: facial age estimation, carried out by a certified third-party age-assurance provider. This estimates whether you are an adult from a live image; it is not a check against an identity document, and it does not identify who you are.
• When it applies: at the point you first try to access any sexually explicit content on the Site — including free or preview material — before you can view or listen.
• What we receive: only a yes/no result (over 18 or not). The image is processed by the provider, not by us, and we do not store identity documents.
• Standard applied: the method is intended to be highly effective and to meet the four criteria expected by the regulator — technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair.

We keep a written record of the age-assurance methods we use and of how we have had regard to privacy and data-protection law, and we review it as our methods change.

Content labelling and warnings

Sexually explicit content on the Site is labelled as adult. Individual stories and chapters also carry a “heat” indicator and mature-content warnings so you know what to expect before you start. These labels help you choose; they do not replace the age check.

Keeping under-18s out

If you are under 18, you must not access the adult content on this Site. If you are a parent or carer, tools such as your device’s parental controls and network-level filtering can help keep this kind of content away from children. If you believe someone under 18 has accessed adult content on the Site, please tell us through our Complaints & Takedown page.