UK Adult Content Traffic Falls After Age Verifications, But VPN Usage Spikes, Reports Watchdog

Traffic to pornography websites in the United Kingdom has fallen significantly after the introduction of age-checking measures this summer, as reported by the country's communications authority. Simultaneously, the adoption of tools designed to circumvent these blocks has risen.

Immediate Drop in User Figures Following Rule Enforcement

The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July led to an immediate fall in visits to popular pornography sites, including the most visited site in the UK. Figures indicates that user traffic to this platform in August reached 9.8 million, a decrease of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, visitor numbers to the 10 most-visited adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than prior to the end-of-July deadline. Later data suggests this downward trend in viewing persisted past August.

Sharp Increase in VPN Adoption to Bypass Checks

Reacting to the new regulations, adoption of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can bypass location-based restrictions by routing internet traffic through another country—more than doubled after 25 July.

Usage reached a high at more than 1.4 million in mid-August, up from around 650,000 people before the verification began. However, the regulator stated that VPN usage has afterwards fallen back, with current numbers at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of daily VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for adult sites.

Teenagers Responding to Harmful Material

In other findings, the regulator's report revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after encountering distressing content online. Actions included reporting the content to the platform to muting the person who posted it.

This survey was conducted before new regulations took effect that compel platforms to stop children from seeing dangerous content, including material related to self-harm and pornography. The most common way young people came across such content was by scrolling through a platform feed, suggesting that recommendation systems were serving harmful material.

Government Announce Review of Adult Content Legislation

In a related development, the government announced it would review the legislation governing pornography to assess whether it is effective in the modern online world.

“The examination will investigate the efficacy of the existing law in relation to criminalising, for example, damaging depictions of incest and any types of pornography which promote the abuse of children,” said a government official.

Campaigners Call For Tighter Digital Regulations

Advocates for better regulation of adult content 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 young-looking performers portraying children.

Proposed amendments to legislation seek to:

• Ban pornography where performers are mimicking children, often filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
• Extend the offence of creating an indecent image of a child to include material where an adult acts the part of a child.
• Apply tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which studies indicates is heavily recommended by platform systems.
• Add further restrictions on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an illegal act to possess tools designed to generate non-consensual nude images.
• Establish a new, separate regulatory body to conduct inspections on pornography sites and respond to complaints of illegal content.

The campaigners contend that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have been enforced for decades offline finally are extended to the online sphere.