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As Australia stumbles its way toward a similar ban, the same explosion in the use of VPNs by young people could happen here.
Within weeks of the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act being implemented to prevent children from accessing adult content online, one winner has clearly emerged – virtual private networks, or VPNs.
According to research from VPN provider vpnMentor, the use of VPNs within the UK surged by up to 6,430 per cent in the wake of the Act coming into law.
That rapid uptake of VPN services was reflected in a list of the top ten most downloaded apps from Apple’s UK App Store, too – five VPN apps suddenly appeared in the list in the wake of the UK’s new laws.
This is great news for the likes of ProtonVPN or NordVPN, both of which made it into the top five most downloaded apps, but for anyone trying to track the browsing habits of disgruntled youth, it is far less welcome.
Sadly, it’s highly likely that the same thing will happen when Australia enacts its social media age ban later this year.
“Banning social media for under 16s will be nearly impossible to enforce but this is a start to help protect children,” Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, told Cyber Daily.
“Unfortunately, the majority of tools designed in place to reduce underage use can and would likely be bypassed with countermeasure features such as VPNs, which young people are fully confident with using.”
The real danger, however, is that, like any move to ban or criminalise certain behaviours, those simply get driven underground and out of reach of proper analysis.
“Children are fully aware of how to get around restrictions but the enablement of VPNs sadly now means the government has less control over what young people are doing as all the data around the sites they frequent will now go to the VPN companies instead of the internet service providers.”
VPNs always experience an uptick in their use in the wake of similar bans. Various states in the US have enacted geo-clocking of adult websites, which all led to a rise in the use of VPNs. More recently, as vpnMentor notes, the geo-blocking of adult website Pornhub in France saw an 875 per cent rise in VPN usage.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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