British Adult Content Traffic Declines After Age Verifications, But Virtual Private Network Usage Surges, States Watchdog

Visitor numbers to pornography platforms in the United Kingdom has decreased markedly since the roll-out of age-checking measures earlier this year, according to the country's communications watchdog. Concurrently, the adoption of specialist software designed to dodge these barriers has surged.

Immediate Drop in Visitor Numbers Following Law Enforcement

The introduction of age verification on 25 July resulted in an prompt fall in traffic to popular pornography sites, including the leading provider in the UK. Data reveals that user traffic to this site in August reached 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million from the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, traffic to the ten top pornography sites in the UK have now stabilized at a markedly decreased volume than before the end-of-July implementation date. Later data indicates this slump in viewing persisted beyond August.

Sharp Increase in Virtual Private Network Adoption to Evade Checks

In response to the new regulations, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can circumvent location-based blocks by routing internet traffic via another country—increased dramatically following 25 July.

Usage reached a high at over 1.4 million in the middle of August, up from around 650,000 users prior to the checks were introduced. Subsequently, the watchdog noted that VPN usage has afterwards decreased, with latest numbers at around 900,000. It added that the volume of regular VPN use remains “much lower” than user numbers for pornography services.

Teenagers Responding to Damaging Material

In other findings, the regulator's annual study revealed that about 60% of young people aged 11 to 17 had acted after seeing damaging content online. Actions ranged from flagging the content to the site to muting the user who posted it.

This research was carried out before new regulations came into force that compel social media companies to prevent children from seeing harmful content, such as material related to self-harm and pornography. The primary way young people encountered such content was by looking through a platform timeline, indicating that recommendation systems were showing harmful material.

Government Launch Examination of Adult Content Laws

In a related development, the government stated it would examine the legislation governing pornography to assess whether it is adequate in the modern digital age.

“The examination will investigate the effectiveness of the current law in regarding making illegal, for example, harmful depictions of familial abuse and any forms of pornography which promote child sexual abuse,” stated a justice minister.

Advocates Call For Tighter Online Regulations

Campaigners 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 encourages abuse by using young-looking performers dressed as children.

Suggested changes to legislation seek to:

• Ban pornography where performers are impersonating children, often recorded in environments like children’s bedrooms.
• Extend the offence of making an indecent image of a child to cover material where an adult acts the part of a child.
• Apply stricter controls on familial abuse pornography, which research indicates is heavily recommended by platform algorithms.
• Introduce additional controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an illegal act to own tools designed to generate private images without permission.
• Create a new, independent regulatory body to conduct spot checks on adult platforms and respond to reports of illegal content.

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