British Adult Content Site Visits Declines Following Identity Verifications, Yet Virtual Private Network Usage Surges, States Watchdog
Traffic to adult content platforms in the United Kingdom has decreased markedly since the enforcement of mandatory age verification earlier this year, according to the nation's communications watchdog. Simultaneously, the adoption of specialist software designed to bypass these blocks has surged.
Immediate Drop in User Figures Following Law Enforcement
The introduction of age verification on 25 July led to an swift fall in traffic to popular online adult platforms, such as the leading provider in the UK. Data indicates that visitor numbers to this platform in August were 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million from the same period in 2024.
Overall, visitor numbers to the ten top adult services in the UK have now settled at a significantly reduced level than before the late July deadline. Subsequent data indicates this slump in site visits continued past August.
Surge in Virtual Private Network Adoption to Bypass Restrictions
Reacting to the new regulations, adoption of VPN software—which can get around location-based blocks by routing connections via another nation—more than doubled following 25 July.
User numbers peaked at over 1.4 million in mid-August, rising from around 650,000 users before the verification began. However, the watchdog noted that VPN usage has afterwards decreased, with current numbers standing at around 900,000. It added that the level of regular VPN use remains “much lower” than user numbers for adult sites.
Teenagers Taking Action to Damaging Online Content
Elsewhere, the watchdog's report revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after seeing damaging content on the internet. Steps taken included flagging the material to the site to blocking the person who posted it.
This research was carried out prior to new rules came into force that require platforms to stop children from accessing dangerous content, such as material related to suicide and adult material. The primary way young people encountered such content was by scrolling through a social media timeline, indicating that algorithms were serving harmful material.
Ministers Announce Review of Pornography Laws
Separately, the ministers stated it would examine the legislation relating to pornography to assess whether it is “fit for purpose” in the ever-developing digital age.
“The examination will look into the efficacy of the current law in relation to making illegal, among other things, harmful portrayals of familial abuse and any types of pornography which encourage child sexual abuse,” said a government official.
Campaigners Call For Stricter Online Controls
Campaigners for tighter regulation of online pornography have called on the government to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This encompasses content featuring incest scenes or that encourages child sexual abuse by casting youthful performers dressed as children.
Proposed changes to government bills aim to:
- Prohibit pornography where performers are mimicking children, often recorded in settings like children’s bedrooms.
- Broaden the crime of making an indecent image of a child to include material where an older performer plays the role of a child.
- Introduce tighter controls on familial abuse pornography, which research indicates is often promoted by platform systems.
- Add further controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an offence to own software designed to generate private images without permission.
- Create a new, independent oversight agency to perform inspections on pornography sites and respond to complaints of unlawful content.
The campaigners argue that these steps would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades offline finally apply to the digital age.
