British Adult Content Traffic Declines After Age Verifications, Yet Virtual Private Network Usage Surges, Reports Watchdog

Traffic to pornography sites in the UK has decreased markedly after the roll-out of age-checking measures earlier this year, according to the nation's communications watchdog. Concurrently, the usage of tools designed to bypass these restrictions has risen.

Immediate Drop in User Figures Following Law Enforcement

The introduction of age verification on 25 July led to an prompt reduction in traffic to major pornography sites, including the top site in the UK. Figures indicates that visitor numbers to this site in August reached 9.8 million, a decrease of 1.5 million compared to the same period in 2024.

In total, traffic to the ten top adult services in the UK have now settled at a significantly reduced level than prior to the end-of-July implementation date. Subsequent data indicates this decline in viewing continued past August.

Surge in Virtual Private Network Usage to Evade Checks

Reacting to the new regulations, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can bypass location-based restrictions by routing connections via another nation—more than doubled following 25 July.

User numbers peaked at over 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 users prior to the checks began. Subsequently, the regulator noted that VPN usage has afterwards decreased, with current numbers standing at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of daily VPN use is “much lower” than user numbers for pornography sites.

Teenagers Responding to Damaging Material

Elsewhere, the regulator's annual study found that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had taken action after seeing distressing content online. Steps taken ranged from reporting the material to the platform to muting the person who posted it.

This research was carried out before new rules came into force that require platforms to prevent children from seeing dangerous content, such as material related to suicide and pornography. The most common way young people encountered such content was by scrolling through a platform feed, indicating that recommendation systems were serving inappropriate material.

Ministers Launch Examination of Adult Content Laws

In a related development, the ministers announced it would review the criminal law relating to pornography to assess whether it is effective in the ever-developing online world.

“The review will look into the efficacy of the current law in regarding making illegal, among other things, harmful depictions of familial abuse and any forms of pornography which encourage the abuse of children,” stated a justice minister.

Advocates Push For Stricter Digital Controls

Campaigners for better control of adult content have called on the government to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote child sexual abuse by casting young-looking performers portraying children.

Suggested changes to government bills aim to:

• Ban pornography where performers are impersonating children, often recorded in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the offence of making an indecent image of a child to cover material where an adult acts the part of a child.
• Introduce tighter regulation on incest-themed pornography, which research suggests is often promoted by platform systems.
• Add additional controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an illegal act to possess tools designed to create private images without permission.
• Create a new, separate regulatory body to perform inspections on pornography sites and act on reports of illegal content.

The campaigners argue that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades in the physical world finally are extended to the digital age.