VPNs are not a 'threat' — industry hopes for an evidence-based outcome to UK online safety consultation | Tech Radar

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VPNs are not a 'threat' — industry hopes for an evidence-based outcome to UK online safety consultation

With the UK's consultation now closed, the industry braces for potential age restrictions

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VPN companies are eagerly waiting to hear the government's plan for VPN access in the UK following the close of the online safety consultation.

The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) launched the "Growing up in the online world" national consultation back in March with a clear goal — gathering evidence and views from parents, organizations, and the wider public on how to make the internet safer for children and teens.

Lawmakers made the stakes clear from the start, noting that VPNs could face age restrictions if the consultation concludes that these tools undermine online safety protections.

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With the findings now imminent, Tech Radar spoke to leading VPN providers about what could come next.

VPNs have multiple functions. While they primarily improve a user's digital privacy and security online, they can also circumvent age restrictions by masking a device's IP address.

Surfshark — one of the best cheap VPNs available — recently contributed to a coordinated statement urging the UK government to consider VPNs' multifaceted purposes.

"Treating VPNs as a 'loophole' misunderstands their role and risks reducing online safety for the very users these proposals are meant to protect," a Surfshark spokesperson told Tech Radar.

"While we support efforts to protect children online, targeting tools that are essential for online security is a flawed approach."

Both Surfshark and Nord VPN point out that their services are already off-limits for children, meaning government-mandated age restrictions would primarily impact adult users instead.

That's why Nord VPN Privacy Advocate, Laura Tyrylytė, believes lawmakers should draw a clear distinction between trustworthy and unreliable VPN services.

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"The government could work with industry to develop formal guidance on what ethical, secure VPN services should look like in practice," she said.

Imposing age restrictions on VPN companies would be antithetical to their mission of improving digital privacy and may be difficult to enforce.

"Age-gating VPNs would require VPN providers to collect and verify identifying data on all users (including journalists, domestic-abuse survivors, and remote workers), which must be avoided," Tyrylytė told Tech Radar.

Alternatively, VPN companies may be required to rely on third-party services to conduct the age verification process, which poses its own risks.

Both Nord VPN and Surfshark also warned that children may move to less reputable, free VPN apps, which are harder to regulate.

"The compliance burden would fall on reputable, paid providers, while pushing determined users toward exactly those unregulated services that pose the real risk to children," said Tyrylytė.

Nym VPN's CEO, Harry Halpin, told Tech Radar that achieving a reasonable degree of accuracy using existing technology is not realistic.

"This has been shown as children can easily fake a moustache to fool age-gating apps," said Halpin.

While it is hard to predict if the consultation's findings will side with the VPN industry, the UK government is actively seeking ways to prevent age verification circumvention.

The controversial Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act became law recently and introduced an obligation for service providers to take "reasonable anti-circumvention measures." Plus, if social media is restricted for teens, an increase in VPN use is almost certain.

Halpin feels strongly that restrictions on VPNs are likely. "The UK will almost certainly ask for age verification and may try to make VPNs that do not do age verification illegal in the UK," he told Tech Radar.

"My fear is that this VPN ban to 'save the children' will just be used to crush freedom of speech and political dissent, the very political tradition that once found a proud home in the UK," he said.

"We expect a measured, evidence-based outcome that does not treat VPNs as a threat," Surfshark told Tech Radar.

Both companies also emphasized the importance of investing in additional digital safety measures, such as device-level protections and improving children's digital literacy.

The government is expected to make its plans on the future of children's access to social media and circumvention tools clear in the coming months.

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Chiara is a multimedia journalist committed to covering stories to help promote the rights and denounce the abuses of the digital side of life – wherever cybersecurity, markets, and politics tangle up. She believes an open, uncensored, and private internet is a basic human need and wants to use her knowledge of VPNs to help readers take back control. She writes news, interviews, and analysis on data privacy, online censorship, digital rights, tech policies, and security software, with a special focus on VPNs, for Tech Radar and Tech Radar Pro. Got a story, tip-off, or something tech-interesting to say? Reach out to chiara.castro@futurenet.com

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