British Adult Content Site Visits Declines Following Identity Checks, Yet VPN Usage Spikes, States Watchdog

Traffic to pornography sites in the United Kingdom has seen a notable drop after the introduction of age-checking measures earlier this year, as reported by the country's communications authority. At the same time, the adoption of specialist software designed to circumvent these restrictions has surged.

Immediate Fall in Visitor Numbers Following Law Enforcement

The enforcement of age verification on 25 July led to an prompt decline in traffic to popular pornography sites, including the top provider in the UK. Data shows that user traffic to this site in August stood at 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million from the equivalent month in 2024.

Overall, visitor numbers to the 10 most-visited adult services in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than before the late July implementation date. Subsequent data suggests this downward trend in site visits continued past August.

Sharp Increase in Virtual Private Network Usage to Evade Checks

Reacting to the new rules, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can get around location-based restrictions by routing internet traffic via another country—more than doubled following 25 July.

User numbers reached a high at more than 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 people before the checks began. Subsequently, the regulator noted that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with latest figures standing at around 900,000. It clarified that the level of daily VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for adult sites.

Young People Taking Action to Damaging Online Content

Elsewhere, the watchdog's annual study revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after encountering harmful content on the internet. Actions included reporting the content to the site to blocking the user who posted it.

This research was carried out prior to new regulations took effect that require platforms to stop children from accessing dangerous content, including material related to suicide and adult material. The primary way teenagers encountered such content was by looking through a social media feed, suggesting that recommendation systems were serving inappropriate material.

Government Announce Examination of Adult Content Laws

Separately, the ministers announced it would examine the legislation governing pornography to assess whether it is “fit for purpose” in the ever-developing online world.

“The review will look into the effectiveness of the current law in relation to criminalising, among other things, damaging depictions of incest and any forms of pornography which promote child sexual abuse,” stated a justice minister.

Campaigners Call For Tighter Online Regulations

Campaigners for tighter regulation of adult content have called on the authorities to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring incest scenes or that encourages child sexual abuse by using youthful performers portraying children.

Suggested changes to legislation seek to:

• Ban pornography where performers are impersonating children, sometimes filmed in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the crime of creating an indecent image of a child to include material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
• Apply stricter controls on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is often promoted by site systems.
• Introduce further controls on “nudification” technology, potentially making it an offence to possess tools designed to generate non-consensual nude images.
• Create a new, separate oversight agency to perform inspections on adult platforms and act on reports of unlawful content.

The advocates argue that these measures would ensure the protections that have existed for years offline finally apply to the digital age.