British Pornography Traffic Falls After Identity Verifications, But VPN Usage Surges, States Watchdog

Visitor numbers to adult content platforms in the United Kingdom has fallen significantly after the introduction of mandatory age verification this summer, according to the country's communications authority. Concurrently, the usage of tools designed to circumvent these barriers has risen.

Sharp Fall in Visitor Figures Following Rule Enforcement

The introduction of age vetting on 25 July caused an swift fall in visits to major pornography sites, such as the most visited provider in the UK. Data reveals that visitor numbers to this site in August stood at 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million from the same period in 2024.

Overall, traffic to the ten most-visited adult services in the UK have now settled at a markedly decreased volume than before the end-of-July implementation date. Later data shows this decline in site visits persisted past August.

Surge in Virtual Private Network Adoption to Bypass Restrictions

In response to the new rules, adoption of VPN software—which can circumvent geographic blocks by routing internet traffic through another nation—more than doubled after 25 July.

User numbers reached a high at over 1.4 million in mid-August, up from around 650,000 users before the verification were introduced. However, the regulator stated that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with current numbers standing at around 900,000. It clarified that the volume of daily VPN use is “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.

Teenagers Taking Action to Damaging Online Content

In other findings, the regulator's report revealed that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had taken action after encountering harmful content online. Steps taken included reporting the content to the site to blocking the user who shared it.

This research was carried out prior to new regulations came into force that compel platforms to prevent children from accessing dangerous content, including material related to self-harm and pornography. The most common way young people came across such content was by scrolling through a platform timeline, suggesting that recommendation systems were serving harmful material.

Ministers Announce Review of Adult Content Legislation

Separately, the government announced it would examine the criminal law governing pornography to assess whether it is effective in the ever-developing digital age.

“The examination will look into the efficacy of the current law in relation to making illegal, among other things, damaging depictions of familial abuse and any forms of pornography which encourage child sexual abuse,” stated a justice minister.

Advocates Push For Tighter Online Regulations

Advocates for tighter regulation of adult content have urged the government to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote abuse by using youthful performers portraying children.

Proposed changes to government bills aim to:

• Ban pornography where adults are mimicking children, often filmed in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the offence of creating an exploitative portrayal of a child to cover material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
• Introduce tighter controls on familial abuse pornography, which studies indicates is heavily recommended by site algorithms.
• Add further controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an illegal act to own software designed to create non-consensual nude images.
• Establish a new, independent oversight agency to conduct inspections on adult platforms and act on complaints of illegal content.

The campaigners argue that these measures would ensure the safeguards that have existed for decades offline finally apply to the online sphere.