- Government report shows that UK children mainly use a VPN to improve their privacy
- Only a fifth of VPN users use the technology to bypass age verification
- Pretending to be older is the most common way to avoid age verification
As the debate surrounding potential VPN restrictions heats up in the UK, a government report has cast doubt on whether such drastic measures are justified.
According to the study commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), digital privacy is the primary driver behind VPN use among UK children.
Unblocking content ranks as the second most common motivation, with children using the tools to access certain apps and media from other countries.
Crucially, the desire to bypass mandatory age checks ranks much further down the list, with only around a fifth of young VPN users actively using the software to evade age checks. This equates to only 7% of all UK children using a VPN to access restricted platforms.
These findings challenge the narrative that restricting VPNs is essential to enforcing current age verification laws and the government’s proposed ban on under-16 social media.
The government is set to share evidence for its public consultation on children’s online safety and VPNs this month.
In response to requests for comment, a spokesperson for DSIT shared a press release confirming that “VPNs play a limited role in bypassing age controls.”
“As platforms implement more robust age verification to comply with the recently announced restrictions, many of the common routes used to bypass age checks today will become increasingly difficult,” they continued.
Children and VPNs: What the DSIT report found
Following a nationwide survey of over 2,000 young people aged 11 to 17, researchers at BMG Research discovered that awareness of virtual private networks is high among UK children.
58% of children surveyed reported knowing about the software, while around a quarter of all respondents admitted to having used a VPN in their lifetime.
The underlying motivations of these young users appear to challenge the argument in favor of stricter controls.
Among active VPN users, 30% indicate that they use the software specifically to secure their online privacy. This echoes warnings from digital rights advocates who argue that restricting VPN access could remove important safety tools from minors.
And while young people use these apps to bypass content restrictions, the survey shows they are primarily interested in avoiding regional entertainment geoblocks or school network restrictions rather than maliciously outsmarting age verification.
Bypassing age checks ranks fifth on the list of motivations. These findings mirror separate YouGov research commissioned by the VPN Trust Initiative, which revealed that only 1.4% of minors surveyed use a VPN specifically to access platforms intended for older demographics.
So how do kids actually bypass age checks?
It seems British kids have found much simpler solutions to avoiding online scrutiny than using a VPN.
Over half of kids surveyed admitted they simply migrate to different platforms, with 37% choosing sites that completely lack age verification and 34% choosing services known to enforce weak, easily fooled controls.
Impersonating an adult remains the most common tactic, with around 63% of those who bypass checks admitting to impersonating an elderly person.
Specifically, 45% do so by providing a false date of birth during tax return audits, while a notable minority (11%) use their parents’ or relatives’ identification information.
The findings follow a stark warning to Downing Street from a coalition of more than 20 tech firms and privacy advocacy groups, which urged politicians to protect digital rights and ensure VPN tools remain unrestricted.
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