Since the introduction of the Online Safety Act in the UK, internet users have had to upload their ID if they want to access “adult content”. While this was introduced in the name of protecting children, the vague definition of “adult content” means that genuinely useful and educational resources about health and sexuality may become inaccessible, and people who are over the age of 18 rightly feel that having to upload their ID to continue to use the internet as they always did is an invasion of their privacy. So far, VPNs have offered a workaround for anybody who is worried about these changes.
The UK government has been considering a VPN ban for kids to stop people bypassing the restrictions for a while now. You can read my full thoughts on this in my earlier article, but the situation has now progressed, inching everyone a little closer to a ban. Well, potentially anyway. A new national consultation gives members of the public an opportunity to share their opinion on the matter, with questions about how people think the government should handle the problem of accessing harmful content online.
The 78-page document that accompanies it covers many areas of online safety, but there is a heavy focus on VPNs. To the credit of the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT), it offers quite a balanced perspective and highlights that people under the age of 18 may have perfectly legitimate reasons for using a VPN, whether that’s to protect their privacy or to access helpful content that shouldn’t have had its access restricted.
Other parts ask the public whether they believe that the government should restrict children’s access to VPNs, and whether or not they believe mandatory age-checks should be carried out before getting a VPN. Although it is hard to see how the government could restrict a child’s VPN access in any other way, implementing this as law would mean that all VPN users would have to upload their ID first, which is ironic, when a lot of people are currently using a VPN specifically to avoid having to upload their ID.
The consultation is open until Tuesday, May 26, and the government has stated that it “is committed to taking swift action on its findings.” This could mean that a VPN ban is in place before the end of the year. The public does indeed have a chance to stop this, but with “what are VPNs” being a growing search term in the UK over the last year, it’s clear that there is a lot of ignorance around the subject, which could cause people to participate in the consultation from a place of ignorance. Well-intentioned ignorance, but ignorance all the same.
If this VPN ban for under-18s is indeed rolled out, it is unclear exactly what would happen to those who already have a VPN account. I would suspect that your access would remain until your plan expires, so it is quite possible that you’d be over 18 by that point, if you are not currently. Of course, being forced to upload your ID sucks (and there have already been huge data leaks involving this highly sensitive data), but if you’ve been thinking about getting a VPN, it could be smart to get one now so that you can at least enjoy privacy on the internet for another year or two.
Take a look at our list of the best VPN services to get an idea of which service might be best for you. We have tested NordVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN (and Nord is our favorite), so have a look if you want to protect your privacy.
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