UK Adult Content Site Visits Declines After Identity Checks, Yet Virtual Private Network Use Spikes, Reports Regulator

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 regulator. Concurrently, the usage of tools designed to bypass these barriers has increased.

Sharp Drop in User Figures Following Law Implementation

The enforcement of age vetting on 25 July resulted in an swift fall in traffic to major online adult platforms, including the most visited provider in the UK. Figures shows that visitor numbers to this site in August reached 9.8 million, a decline of 1.5 million compared to the same period in 2024.

Overall, traffic to the ten most-visited pornography sites in the UK have now settled at a significantly reduced level than prior to the late July deadline. Later analysis suggests this downward trend in site visits persisted past August.

Sharp Increase in VPN Adoption to Evade Checks

Reacting to the new rules, adoption of VPN software—which can bypass geographic restrictions by masking connections through another nation—increased dramatically following 25 July.

Usage reached a high at over 1.4 million in mid-August, rising from approximately 650,000 users before the checks were introduced. However, the watchdog stated that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with current numbers standing at approximately 900,000. It added that the volume of daily VPN use is “much lower” than user numbers for adult sites.

Young People Responding to Damaging Online Content

In other findings, the watchdog's report revealed that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had acted after seeing harmful content on the internet. Actions included flagging the content to the platform to muting the person who shared it.

This research was conducted before new regulations came into force that require platforms to stop children from seeing dangerous content, such as material related to self-harm and adult material. The most common way young people came across such content was by looking through a social media feed, indicating that algorithms were serving inappropriate material.

Ministers Launch Examination of Adult Content Laws

Separately, the ministers announced it would review the legislation relating to pornography to assess whether it is adequate in the modern online world.

“The examination will investigate the effectiveness of the current law in relation to making illegal, among other things, harmful portrayals of familial abuse and any forms of pornography which encourage the abuse of children,” said a justice minister.

Campaigners Call For Tighter Online Controls

Campaigners for better regulation of online pornography have called on the authorities to outlaw so-called “barely legal” material. This includes content featuring simulated familial abuse or that appears to promote child sexual abuse by using young-looking adults portraying children.

Proposed amendments to legislation aim to:

• Prohibit pornography where adults are mimicking children, sometimes recorded in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Extend the offence of making an exploitative portrayal of a child to include material where an adult acts the part of a child.
• Introduce tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is often promoted by platform systems.
• Add further restrictions on “nudification” software, potentially making it an offence to own tools designed to generate non-consensual nude images.
• Establish a new, independent oversight agency to conduct spot checks on pornography sites and respond to reports of illegal content.

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