UK looking to block VPNs following social media ban for under-16s
Key Points
- Ministers considering age restrictions on VPNs to stop children bypassing the social media ban.
- Digital Minister Ian Murray calls VPNs a “big issue”; expects some non-compliance and needs strong age verification.
- Reliable age checks for 16+ not yet proven; harder than for 18+ as credit cards/emails unavailable.
- Ofcom to publish age assurance assessment by end-October; media literacy statement this month.
- Ban covers Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc.; excludes messaging apps and YouTube Kids; aims for pre-Christmas regulations.
Government ministers are considering putting age limits on virtual private networks to stop children circumventing the forthcoming social media ban, the Financial Times reports.
Ministers have also yet to find a way to stop teenagers circumventing a ban through use of VPNs, which can tell devices that users are in another country.
Ian Murray, Digital Minister, told the FT that “VPNs are a big issue” in enforcing the rules.
“We understand that there’s going to be some non-compliance in this and that’s where we want to find the very, very best examples of age verification and how we can make this system work.”
There are growing questions as to how exactly the government will enforce the ban. Ofcom has told the government that the technology to reliably verify whether a user is over 16 is not yet proven.
The warning came in a letter sent on Tuesday (16 June) by Oliver Griffiths, Group Director for Online Safety at Ofcom, to Ollie Illott, Interim Director General for Emerging Technology and AI at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
It followed the government’s announcement on Monday of a ban on under-16s using social media, and a separate letter from Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes to the Science Secretary the previous day.
Griffiths confirmed Ofcom will publish a technical assessment of “highly effective age assurance at 16” by the end of October, the rapid study ministers asked the regulator to run so Parliament can debate the regulations on an informed basis.
His early read is that checking age at 16 is harder than at 18, because several of the methods that work for adults do not apply to younger teenagers.
Two of the standard verification routes fall away at the lower age threshold. Griffiths noted that email-based age estimation and credit-card checks are not applicable or not available at 16, leaving a narrower set of options.
Ofcom argued that checks work best when built into multiple stages of the user journey, and that a layered, whole-of-system approach may ultimately cut circumvention better than the current service-by-service model.
It will publish a media literacy statement later this month and a follow-up report within the first year of the ban looking specifically at displacement – users shifting to services outside the ban’s scope.
The ban announced on Monday covers Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but excludes YouTube Kids and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal.
The government wants the regulations passed before Christmas, with functionality restrictions switched on by default for 16- and 17-year-olds to avoid a cliff-edge at 16.
