- A petition to cancel the British online security law has already reached over 340,000 signatures in just a few days
- The British Parliament must consider to debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures
- Rules of New Age were enforced on July 25, 2025, which triggered concern for people’s digital rights
A petition to cancel the British online security law has collected over 340,000 signatures in just a few days after the requirements for strict new age came into force.
As of Friday, July 25, 2025, all platforms showing adult content must verify that all their users are over 18 years via robust age control. Social media, game services and dating apps are also required to protect minors from harmful content via similar controls.
These requirements have given rise to concerns among politicians, experts in digital rights and technologists who fear that invasive ID control can lead to data violations, monitoring and limitations of free expression.
The petition has now crossed 100,000 and will then be considered for debate. The next steps are Contact your MP, ask them to be on any debate- Explain your problems with the action, my reasons to start it is probably different from yours to sign it- stick to sign pic.twitter.com/ekyqbdh2anJuly 25, 2025
“We believe that the extent of the Online Security Act is far wider and restrictive than is needed in a free society,” reads the petition created by Alex Baynham, a London who launched a new independent party, Build, last December.
“We believe that Parliament should abolish the law and work to produce proportionate legislation rather than risk cracking down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games or even hamsters because it cannot handle individual bad faith actors.”
While the British Parliament must consider to debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures, Baynham urges all concerned to have their opinion.
To do so, sign the petition, contact your MP and explain the reason why you are concerned. The deadline is October 22, 2025. However, a debate that has been arranged.
Age Verification – What is the risk and how to remain in safety
The new rules certainly come as a way to prevent children from accessing inappropriate and dangerous content online. Still, age control also comes with significant risks to people’s privacy, security and other rights such as freedom of expression and access to information.
You must now be ready to scan your face, credit card or ID document if you want to access any content on x, reddit or bluesky in England. The same goes if you want to play a new over-18 video game, find a new match on a dating app or watch a video that is only reserved for adults.
This involves you to trust these service providers to take good care of these very sensitive data. Something that the recent tea -app shows is not always possible. A data violation of this size could expose millions of Britons to identity stolen, fraud and other dangers.
Similarly, some experts also claim that getting rid of online anonymity can lead to higher monitoring by leaving such data access vulnerable to abuse.
Experts also fear that the new rules can lead to higher censorship as platforms are now required to delete or block all content defined as harmful.
Despite Britain’s regulator, Ofcom, which suggested against it, the British have turned to the best VPN apps in a lot to avoid giving up their most precious data to access a site.
Proton VPN, for example, saw an increase in registrations that recorded an hour’s increase of over 1,400% from Friday at midnight.
When he spoke to Techradar, a proton spokesman said: “This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the effect that universal age verification legislation wants on their privacy.”
