The UK House of Lords voted last week to ban VPN services for anyone under 18. Amendment 92 to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill passed 207 to 159. If it survives the House of Commons, the government has 12 months to make it law. VPNs are illegal in Belarus, Iraq, North Korea, and Turkmenistan. They're restricted in China, Iran, Oman, Russia, Turkey, and the UAE. The UK is legislating its way onto this list. Not the full ban yet, just age restrictions. The same age restrictions that require collecting identifying information on every user.
What Age Gating Actually Means
The amendment requires VPN providers to implement "highly effective" age assurance for all UK users. Highly effective means government-issued ID, biometric scans, or credit card verification. Every person who wants to use a VPN in the UK must prove they're over 18. People use VPNs specifically because they don't want to share identifying information with third parties. The entire point is encrypting traffic and masking your location. Now to access that privacy tool, you must first surrender your privacy to verify your age. You must create a database entry linking your real identity to your VPN usage. The Windscribe CEO called this "the dumbest possible fix." He's right, but it's only dumb if you think the goal is actually protecting children. If the goal is building a registry of who uses privacy tools, it makes perfect sense.
The Map Tells the Story
China doesn't allow unauthorised VPN usage. The Great Firewall requires approved VPNs that log user activity and provide data to the government on request. Russia's Roskomnadzor bans VPN providers that don't block access to blacklisted sites. Iran heavily restricts VPN services and prosecutes people who use them to access prohibited content. Turkey blocks VPN services during politically sensitive periods. Each claims legitimate reasons. Protecting children, national security, preventing terrorism, maintaining social stability. They implement restrictions gradually. They focus first on specific use cases everyone agrees are bad. Then they expand.
Who Gets Hurt
Age verification requires collecting data. Passport numbers, driver's license information, facial scans, credit card details. This information must be stored and transmitted between the user, the VPN provider, and potentially a third-party verification service. The Ashley Madison hack led to blackmail, extortion, and suicides. That was an affair website. A leaked VPN user database could be worse. Journalists use VPNs to communicate with sources. Activists use them to organise. Abuse survivors use them to hide from abusers. Dissidents in authoritarian countries use them to access information. A database linking real identities to VPN usage puts all of these people at risk. The UK government says they'll protect the data. They said the same thing about the NHS patient database, which had multiple breaches. They said it about the voter registration database, which was compromised. Every large database eventually gets breached.
The Technical Reality
Tech-savvy teenagers will bypass these restrictions in ten minutes. They'll use Tor. They'll use proxy servers. They'll set up their own VPNs on cloud servers. They'll borrow a parent's verified account. The Open Rights Group notes that "detecting or banning VPNs is not technically feasible without extreme levels of digital authoritarianism." The law won't prevent determined children from accessing VPNs. It will prevent casual adult users who value privacy from accessing VPNs without surrendering that privacy. It will push minors toward less secure, unregulated alternatives. It will harm the legitimate users who rely on VPNs for safety. Lord Knight of Weymouth pointed this out during the debate. His phone uses a VPN following a cybersecurity consultation provided by Parliament itself. Parliament recommends VPNs for security. Now they're voting to restrict access to them.
How We Got Here
The Online Safety Act came into force in July 2025. It requires age verification for any website hosting adult content or material related to self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders. Sites must implement ID uploads, facial scans, credit card verification, or mobile network confirmation. VPN usage in the UK immediately spiked. Proton VPN reported a 1,400% increase in signups. NordVPN saw a 1,000% spike. Daily active VPN users doubled from 650,000 to 1.5 million, then settled around 1 million. That's 350,000 additional daily users who weren't using VPNs before age verification went live. These aren't primarily children. Adults don't want to hand their passport information to random age verification services associated with porn sites. They don't want facial scans stored in third-party databases. They don't want their browsing history linked to their credit card. So they started using VPNs. The government's response was not to reconsider the privacy implications of mandatory age verification. It was to crack down on VPNs. Citizens keep finding ways around monitoring.
What Comes Next
The amendment still has to pass the House of Commons. The Labour government opposes it in its current form but hasn't ruled out age restrictions. They're separately consulting on these issues through spring 2026. MPs from multiple parties have already called for bringing VPNs into scope of the Online Safety Act. Conservative MP Peter Fortune asked whether "the use of VPNs has to be examined further" for the Act to succeed. Labour MP Jim McMahon argued VPN companies should be responsible for preventing children from evading checks. Over 500,000 people signed a petition demanding the Online Safety Act be repealed. The government refused. They're "working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible."
What This Actually Protects
The stated goal is protecting children from harmful content online. Does age verification plus VPN restrictions actually protect children? Adults who use VPNs for legitimate privacy protection must now choose between privacy and compliance. Journalists lose source protection. Activists lose organisational security. People traveling to countries with hostile surveillance lose their safety measures. The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes age verification mandates as "authoritarian control on accessing information" that "make children less safe online." They point out that millions of people in the UK don't have government ID or personal devices. These people, primarily lower-income and older individuals, simply lose internet access under mandatory verification systems.
Where This Leads
Australia passed a social media ban for under-16s. Multiple US states are implementing age verification requirements. France is considering similar measures. When one democratic country implements a restriction, others follow. They point to the precedent. The countries that ban VPNs outright didn't start with total bans. They started with restrictions. Specific use cases. Legitimate-sounding justifications. China didn't build the Great Firewall overnight. Russia didn't implement Roskomnadzor's controls all at once. Iran didn't block everything immediately. They built the infrastructure piece by piece, restriction by restriction.
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FAQ
Did the UK actually ban VPNs
Not yet. The House of Lords passed an amendment requiring age verification for all VPN users. It still needs approval from the House of Commons, which the Labour government currently opposes
What countries currently restrict VPNs
VPNs are illegal in Belarus, Iraq, North Korea, and Turkmenistan. China, Iran, Oman, Russia, Turkey, and the UAE restrict VPN usage through various enforcement mechanisms
How would age verification work for VPNs
The amendment requires government-issued ID, biometric scans, or credit card verification. Every UK user would need to prove they're over 18 by providing identifying information to access VPN services
Can teenagers bypass VPN age verification
Yes. Tech-savvy users can use Tor, proxy servers, set up their own VPNs on cloud servers, or borrow verified accounts. The Open Rights Group says detecting or banning VPNs requires extreme digital authoritarianism
What happened after the UK implemented age verification for websites
VPN usage spiked immediately. Proton VPN saw a 1,400% increase in signups. Daily active VPN users doubled from 650,000 to 1.5 million, driven primarily by adults avoiding invasive age checks