UK Pornography Site Visits Declines After Age Verifications, Yet VPN Usage Surges, Reports Watchdog

Visitor numbers to pornography platforms in the UK has decreased markedly after the introduction of mandatory age verification this summer, as reported by the nation's communications authority. Concurrently, the adoption of specialist software designed to circumvent these restrictions has increased.

Sharp Drop in User Figures After Rule Enforcement

The introduction of age vetting on 25 July caused an swift reduction in visits to popular pornography sites, including the leading provider in the UK. Figures indicates that user traffic to this platform in August were 9.8 million, a decrease of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, traffic to the ten top adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than before the end-of-July implementation date. Later data suggests this downward trend in site visits persisted past August.

Sharp Increase in Virtual Private Network Usage to Evade Checks

Reacting to the new rules, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can circumvent geographic restrictions by routing connections through another nation—more than doubled following 25 July.

User numbers reached a high at over 1.4 million in mid-August, rising from around 650,000 people prior to the checks were introduced. However, the regulator stated that VPN usage has since fallen back, with current numbers at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of regular VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.

Young People Taking Action to Harmful Online Content

In other findings, the regulator's report revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after seeing damaging content on the internet. Actions included reporting the material to the site to blocking the user who posted it.

This survey was conducted before new rules came into force that require platforms to prevent children from accessing dangerous content, including material related to suicide and pornography. The most common way teenagers came across such content was by scrolling through a social media timeline, indicating that recommendation systems were showing inappropriate material.

Government Launch Review of Pornography Legislation

In a related development, the ministers stated it would review the criminal law relating to pornography to consider whether it is adequate in the ever-developing digital age.

“The review will look into the efficacy of the existing law in regarding making illegal, for example, harmful depictions of incest and any types of pornography which encourage child sexual abuse,” stated a justice minister.

Advocates Push For Tighter Digital Regulations

Campaigners for tighter regulation of adult content have urged the authorities to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring simulated familial abuse or that appears to promote abuse by using young-looking adults dressed as children.

Proposed changes to legislation seek to:

• Ban pornography where adults are mimicking children, sometimes filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the offence of creating an exploitative portrayal of a child to include material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
• Apply tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is often promoted by platform algorithms.
• Add further controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an offence to possess software designed to create private images without permission.
• Establish a new, separate oversight agency to perform spot checks on pornography sites and respond to complaints of unlawful content.

The advocates argue that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades offline finally apply to the digital age.