(Picture courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.)
Wolf Territories Grid, a UK-based grid that is without doubt one of the largest in OpenSim, now requires residents to go a photograph ID and reside selfie test earlier than they’ll enter areas with sexual content material — and has closed these areas to hypergrid guests altogether, the grid stated in an internet security assertion on the finish of October.
“Guests from different grids can’t enter Grownup Content material areas,” the assertion stated. “We’ve no option to test their age. They’re welcome all over the place else.”
The grid stated it made the change to adjust to the UK’s On-line Security Act. The act was handed in 2023 and is being rolled out in phases. The elements that matter most to OpenSim grids took impact final 12 months — the obligation to cope with unlawful content material on March 17, 2025, and the obligation to maintain youngsters away from pornography and different dangerous content material on July 25, 2025.
Below the regulation, asking customers how previous they’re doesn’t depend as holding youngsters out.
“A date of start typed right into a kind shouldn’t be sufficient below the regulation,” Wolf Territories stated.
That’s the reason the grid went with a photograph ID and a selfie.
I requested Wolf Territories Grid proprietor Paul Clevett, who is understood in-world as Lone Wolf, whether or not Ofcom — the UK regulator that enforces the regulation — had advised the grid to make the change.
“It’s a authorized requirement for all UK grids open to the general public to adjust to the On-line Security Act,” Clevett advised Hypergrid Enterprise. “Ofcom is not going to contact you till somebody experiences a violation and at that time it’s possible you’ll be fined.”
These fines can go as excessive as 18 million British kilos — about US $23 million — or ten p.c of an organization’s worldwide income, whichever is larger. The most important nice to date was 1.35 million kilos, which Ofcom issued in February to a pornography firm that didn’t have age checks.
I’ve additionally requested Clevett what occurs to present areas with grownup content material if their house owners don’t pay the brand new price, and the way the grid will implement the principles in personal houses and messages. I haven’t heard again but, however I’ll replace this story after I do.
How the age test works
The test is free, solely needs to be executed as soon as, and is dealt with by the cost firm Stripe, in response to Wolf Territories. Residents begin it from the grid’s web site, below “Confirm my age” within the management panel.
“We by no means see or preserve your ID,” the assertion stated. “Stripe does the test and solely tells us whether or not you handed.”
There are not any exceptions.
“No person will get in with out the test,” the assertion stated. “That features area house owners and our personal workers.”
Clevett declined to say what number of residents have accomplished the test to date, citing information safety.
Most residents won’t ever see it, the grid stated.
“For most individuals, nothing adjustments,” the assertion stated. “In case you don’t go to Grownup Content material areas, you’ll by no means be requested to indicate ID.”
Grownup areas are usually not Grownup Content material areas
I used to be a bit confused about this at first and needed to learn this part twice, however there are two totally different sorts of grownup areas. Wolf Territories now has 4 area rankings, and two of them have the phrase “grownup” within the identify.
Common and Reasonable areas are open to everybody 15 and older, which is the grid’s minimal age. Reasonable areas permit mature themes, swearing, and non-sexual partial nudity reminiscent of swimwear.
Grownup areas are for residents 18 and older. They permit sturdy violence, sturdy language, and grownup themes — however no sexual content material. There isn’t any ID test for these areas. The grid goes by the date of start on the account.
Grownup Content material areas are a separate, fourth class, and the one one behind the Stripe test.
“Sexual content material is allowed solely in Grownup Content material areas,” the assertion stated. “It isn’t allowed in Grownup areas, personal areas, houses, profiles, teams or messages.”
So it seems to be like a area that’s rated Grownup on Wolf Territories remains to be open to hypergrid guests. A area that’s rated Grownup Content material shouldn’t be.
The grid stated it didn’t need to put the entire grid behind an ID test.
“So we had two selections: ban grownup sexual content material all over the place, or preserve it in a single clearly marked place behind an actual age test,” the assertion stated.
The identical cut up applies to stock. Grownup clothes, animations, and furnishings may be purchased by anybody, however can solely be worn or utilized by age-checked adults inside Grownup Content material areas, the assertion stated.
Area house owners who need to host Grownup Content material areas should go the identical test and pay ten British kilos a month or 120 kilos a 12 months — about $13 or $152. The assertion describes it as a separate price that covers all of an proprietor’s areas and pays for the additional moderation and checks.
Common land rental on the grid begins at seven kilos, or about $9, a month for the standard area.
The brand new guidelines took impact on October 26, in response to the grid’s on-line security web page.
What different grids are doing
Wolf Territories is the second large grid I do know of to place up a hypergrid wall due to the UK regulation.
In August 2025, quickly after the kid security guidelines took impact, ZetaWorlds stated it could require all of its UK customers to show they’re over 18, both with a bank card on file or a full age verification.
“Hypergrid entry for customers from the UK will probably be solely blocked as we’ve no enough option to confirm these customers,” Zetamex Community CEO Vincent Sylvester wrote in a put up on the ZetaWorlds weblog.
Sylvester additionally stated that storing age verification information is a privateness nightmare, and urged UK residents to complain to their members of Parliament.
The 2 grids took totally different routes. ZetaWorlds checks its UK customers, for the entire grid. Wolf Territories checks everybody, wherever they reside, however just for one kind of area.
Different grid house owners need no a part of it.
“I don’t like the concept of getting to gather individuals’s identification or power individuals to reveal these items,” Josh Boam advised Hypergrid Enterprise.
Boam is the CEO of the AviWorlds grid, and likewise runs Hosting4OpenSim, an organization that hosts OpenSim grids for different individuals.
“The age verification can be one thing particular person grids can go for however I’d not be pushing,” Boam stated.
As a substitute, everybody who registers on one of many firm’s grids has to test a field saying they’re over 18, Boam stated. If a person seems to be youthful, the corporate can ask for proof and lock the account.
And Boam has no plans to shut something to hypergrid guests.
“As for hypergrid, we gained’t be proscribing,” Boam stated. “I hate restrictions and so many others do too.”
Kitely isn’t planning ID checks both.
“We aren’t a UK firm, haven’t any UK presence, and don’t goal UK prospects,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner advised Hypergrid Enterprise. “Most of our prospects are positioned in North America and we’ve no plans to power them to pay a privateness value to show their age until US legal guidelines mandate it.”
Kitely added age restrictions again in 2018, when it started complying with Europe’s Common Knowledge Safety Regulation, and people restrictions apply to hypergrid guests as effectively, Tochner stated.
The grid additionally isn’t an grownup service because the regulation defines it, he stated. Customers can solely add content material to the sections of the service with the best maturity score, and Kitely moderates content material that breaks its phrases of service.
“Our person base consists virtually solely of individuals many years older than the age at which somebody would ask them for an ID in the event that they tried to purchase alcohol in a bar,” he stated.
The hypergrid downside isn’t new
OpenSim has been right here earlier than. Again in 2012, a German firm known as X-Avatar supplied an age verification module for OpenSim areas.
I couldn’t discover any public dialogue of the Wolf Territories assertion on OpenSimWorld to date. However the query got here up there final 12 months, when Holoneon‘s Fiona Candy proposed almost the identical guidelines that Wolf Territories has now adopted — age checks for native residents solely, and hypergrid guests restricted to Common-rated land.
“Since there are 24 US states and the UK requiring age verification it appears that is going to inevitably change the way in which OpenSimulator capabilities,” Candy stated in a put up on OpenSimWorld.
That depend is now as much as 27 states, in response to a listing stored by the Age Verification Suppliers Affiliation, the commerce group for corporations that promote age checks. The US Supreme Courtroom upheld a type of legal guidelines, in Texas, in June 2025.
The US legal guidelines are largely geared toward business pornography web sites, and that’s who has felt them to date. Pornhub’s proprietor, Aylo, has blocked entry in additional than 20 of these states as an alternative of checking IDs. Within the UK, all the Ofcom fines for lacking age checks have gone to pornography corporations, and Pornhub stopped accepting new UK customers in February.
I haven’t discovered a case of any of those legal guidelines being enforced in opposition to a digital world.
Not everybody on OpenSimWorld agreed with Candy’s proposal. One commenter, Jupiter Rowland, stated that pushing guests to create native accounts on each grid “will largely kill the hypergrid,” and that occasion venues which can be rated Grownup simply to maintain out little one avatars would lose their crowds.
Second Life nonetheless takes your phrase for it
Linden Lab, house owners of Second Life, hasn’t introduced something related, so far as I can discover.
Second Life residents get entry to grownup areas based mostly on the start date they gave at sign-up and a setting within the viewer preferences. There’s no ID test. The corporate’s phrases and situations do say that residents comply with undergo account verification if Linden Lab asks for it.
In March, Linden Lab opened a brand new Grownup Hub with out including any age checks.
Different platforms are shifting sooner. VRChat stated in June that it’s going to roll out free age checks to UK customers first, and that customers who don’t go as 18 or older gained’t be capable to flip off its filter for sexually suggestive content material. And Roblox has required a facial age test or an ID from anybody who needs to make use of chat since January.
However every of these corporations has one login system for all of its customers. The hypergrid has tons of of grids, every with its personal accounts, and no manner for one grid to vouch for a customer’s age to a different.
I requested Clevett what it could take to let hypergrid guests again into Grownup Content material areas.
“We would wish to have age verified customers,” he stated.
If in case you have something to say about age checks on OpenSim grids, please share it within the feedback under, or e-mail me instantly at [email protected].
