British Adult Content Site Visits Falls Following Identity Verifications, Yet Virtual Private Network Usage Spikes, Reports Regulator

Access to pornography platforms in the UK has fallen significantly after the enforcement of age-checking measures earlier this year, according to the country's communications regulator. Concurrently, the usage of specialist software designed to circumvent these blocks has surged.

Sharp Drop in User Numbers After Law Enforcement

The introduction of age vetting on 25 July resulted in an immediate fall in visits to major pornography sites, such as the most visited provider in the UK. Figures shows that visitor numbers to this platform in August stood at 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million from the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, traffic to the 10 top adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a “lower level” than prior to the late July implementation date. Later data shows this decline in viewing continued past August.

Surge in VPN Usage to Evade Checks

In response to the new regulations, adoption of VPN software—which can bypass location-based restrictions by masking internet traffic through another country—more than doubled following 25 July.

Usage reached a high at more than 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 users before the verification were introduced. However, the regulator noted that VPN usage has afterwards fallen back, with latest figures standing at approximately 900,000. It added that the volume of daily VPN use remains “much lower” than traffic for adult services.

Teenagers Responding to Damaging Material

Elsewhere, the regulator's report found that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had taken action after encountering harmful content on the internet. Steps taken included reporting the content to the platform to muting the user who shared it.

This research was carried out prior to new regulations came into force that require platforms to prevent children from accessing dangerous content, including material related to suicide and pornography. The most common way young people came across such content was by scrolling through a platform feed, indicating that recommendation systems were serving inappropriate material.

Government Launch Review of Pornography Legislation

Separately, the ministers announced it would examine the legislation relating to pornography to consider whether it is “fit for purpose” in the modern digital age.

“The examination will look into the efficacy of the existing law in relation to criminalising, among other things, damaging depictions of familial abuse and any forms of pornography which promote the abuse of children,” stated a government official.

Advocates Call For Stricter Digital Controls

Advocates for better regulation of online pornography have called on the authorities to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This encompasses content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote child sexual abuse by using young-looking adults dressed as children.

Proposed changes to government bills seek to:

• Ban pornography where performers are impersonating children, sometimes recorded in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the crime of making an indecent image of a child to include material where an adult acts the part of a child.
• Introduce tighter regulation on incest-themed pornography, which studies suggests is heavily recommended by site systems.
• Add additional controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an illegal act to own software designed to create non-consensual nude images.
• Create a new, separate oversight agency to conduct inspections on adult platforms and act on complaints of unlawful content.

The advocates contend that these steps would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades offline finally are extended to the digital age.