According to the Children's Commissioner for England, the government must take action to prevent children from using virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass age verification on pornography websites.
Dame Rachel de Souza told BBC Newsnight that VPNs are a "loophole that needs to be closed" and that age verification is required for these services. VPNs can mask a user's online location, making it appear as if they are in another country. This allows them to circumvent the requirements of the Online Safety Act, which mandates that adult content websites must verify users' ages. A government spokesperson stated that VPNs are legal tools for adults and that there are no plans to outlaw them.
A Growing Problem
The Children's Commissioner's recommendation follows a recent survey revealing an increase in the number of children who have viewed online pornography over the past two years. Last month, VPNs became the most downloaded apps on the UK's Apple App Store after websites such as PornHub, Reddit, and X began implementing age verification. Users of VPNs connect to websites via a remote server, which hides their true IP address and location, allowing them to bypass firewalls and content restrictions.
"Of course, we need age verification on VPNs," Dame Rachel told Newsnight, reiterating that it is a "wormhole that must be closed." She wants ministers to investigate how VPNs can be prevented from allowing underage viewers to access pornography.
The study also found that more children are accidentally stumbling across pornography. Some 16-to-21-year-olds surveyed reported seeing it from as young as six. Over half of the respondents had seen depictions of strangulation, prompting Dame Rachel to call for the government to ban such content. Additionally, 44% of respondents had seen pornography depicting the rape of a sleeping person.
The data was collected before the July amendments to the Online Safety Act, which introduced age verification for pornography. Dame Rachel described the findings as "rock bottom," adding, "This shows us how much of the issue is about the build of websites, algorithms, and recommendation services that served harmful content in front of children who never sought it out." She urged that the study be treated as a "line in the sand."
Calls for Action
The Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology told the BBC, "children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for far too long, [and] the Online Safety Act is changing that." Regarding Dame Rachel's comments on VPNs, a spokesperson said there are no plans to ban them, "but if companies deliberately push workarounds like VPNs to children, they face tougher enforcement and heavy fines."
Josh Lane, 25, shared his experience of becoming addicted to pornography at 14 after first discovering it via a Google search at age 12. He told Newsnight that the addiction caused him to isolate himself from friends and family because he was "afraid of anyone finding out that I was hooked." He said that "the only place I could get, I guess, love, and affection was pornography," all while feeling "heaps of guilt and shame." Now happily married and having not viewed pornography for nearly a year, he described it as a "problem that has plagued you forever."
Kerry Smith, founder of the Internet Watch Foundation, said that "children's exposure to extreme or violent sexual imagery can normalise problematic sexual conduct." She stressed that it is something "we all need to be concerned about" and that the measures used by adult websites to protect children must be "thorough and informative."
