British Adult Content Site Visits Declines After Identity Checks, Yet VPN Usage Spikes, States Regulator

Access to adult content websites in the United Kingdom has seen a notable drop after the roll-out of mandatory age verification earlier this year, as reported by the nation's communications authority. Concurrently, the adoption of specialist software designed to bypass these blocks has increased.

Immediate Fall in User Figures After Law Implementation

The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July led to an swift fall in visits to leading pornography sites, including the most visited provider in the UK. Figures shows that visitor numbers to this platform in August reached 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million from the same period in 2024.

In total, traffic to the ten top pornography sites in the UK have now settled at a “lower level” than before the end-of-July implementation date. Later analysis suggests this decline in viewing continued past August.

Sharp Increase in VPN Usage to Evade Checks

Reacting to the new regulations, adoption of VPN software—which can get around geographic restrictions by masking connections through another country—increased dramatically following 25 July.

User numbers reached a high at over 1.4 million in mid-August, up from around 650,000 people prior to the verification were introduced. However, the watchdog stated that VPN usage has since fallen back, with current figures at approximately 900,000. It clarified that the volume of daily VPN use remains “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.

Teenagers Taking Action to Harmful Online Content

Elsewhere, the watchdog's report found that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had acted after encountering distressing content on the internet. Actions ranged from flagging the material to the site to muting the person who shared it.

This survey was conducted prior to new regulations came into force that compel platforms to stop children from seeing harmful content, including material related to suicide and adult material. The most common way young people came across such content was by scrolling through a social media timeline, indicating that algorithms were showing inappropriate material.

Ministers Announce Examination of Adult Content Laws

In a related development, the ministers stated it would examine the legislation governing pornography to assess whether it is “fit for purpose” in the ever-developing digital age.

“The review will look into the efficacy of the existing 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.

Advocates Push For Stricter Digital Regulations

Campaigners 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 abuse by using youthful adults portraying children.

Proposed amendments to government bills aim to:

• Ban pornography where adults are mimicking children, often filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
• Extend the offence of making an indecent image of a child to cover material where an adult plays the role of a child.
• Apply tighter controls on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is heavily recommended by site systems.
• Introduce further controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an illegal act to own software designed to create non-consensual nude images.
• Create a new, independent oversight agency to conduct inspections on adult platforms and act on complaints of illegal content.

The advocates argue that these measures would ensure the protections that have existed for years offline finally are extended to the digital age.