Pornhub returns to Australia, but only for iPhone users verified by Apple

Pornhub is back in Australia, but only for people on Apple devices. Its owner Aylo said on October 6 that it is restoring access for "eligible adult users in Australia" who have confirmed their age through Apple's Australian age-verification process. Everyone else, including Android and desktop users, still gets the restricted version Aylo has shown Australians since March.

Why Pornhub left in March

On 9 March 2026 Australia's age-restricted material codes took effect. Overseen by the eSafety Commissioner, they require porn sites, app stores, AI chatbots, search engines and other services to check users' age, with fines of up to A$49.5 million. Aylo refused to run its own checks. It blocked new registrations on RedTube and YouPorn and showed Australians a "safe for work" version of Pornhub, arguing that site-by-site age checks would not protect children and would create risks for adults' personal data.

Australians reacted by installing VPNs. According to analytics firm Apptopia, cited by Reuters, VPN downloads in Australia nearly tripled to 28,722 on 8 March, the day before the deadline, against about 10,000 a day the week before. Three of the ten most downloaded free apps on Apple's App Store that week were VPNs.

Why Apple changes the picture

Apple has since rolled out age verification in Australia, following an earlier launch in the UK with iOS 26.4. Adults confirm their age once with Apple, using a credit card or a scan of a passport, driver's licence or other government ID, and Apple can then confirm to apps and sites that ask that the owner is an adult. "For years, Aylo has advocated for device-based age verification as the most effective and privacy-protecting approach to help prevent minors from accessing age-inappropriate content online," said Alex Kekesi, Aylo's vice-president of brand and community. With safety features built into the device by default, she said, adults do not have to "surrender unnecessary personal information to multiple apps and websites".

The law has not changed. What changed is that a phone maker now does the check, and Aylo is willing to accept that. The age check is moving from individual websites into the operating system, the approach Aylo has pushed for years.

What it means for users

For iPhone owners in Australia, the trade-off is different, not gone. Instead of uploading ID to a porn site, they hand it to Apple once, and their Apple account becomes the proof of age for every site that asks. Android and computer users have no such route yet, so for them nothing has changed. For a wider picture of how Australia ties internet access to identity, see our explainer on age checks in Google and Bing.