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In the minutes after the Online Safety Act took effect on July 25, sign-ups to one popular VPN service in the UK surged by more than 1,400%.
The law requires users to prove they are over 18 to access adult content, dating apps, and some types of content on social media. A Proton VPN spokesperson tells Mashable that it saw a spike in activity at midnight on Friday and again at 9 a.m. BST.
Sign-ups in France also spiked by roughly 1,000% over baseline when the country began implementing similar rules on June 4. And in Turkey, signups to the VPN spiked 1,100% after the president’s primary political opponent was jailed, leading to violent unrest across the country and social media restrictions. In the US, Proton VPN sign-ups spiked 300% after TikTok temporarily went dark earlier this year.
In the UK, residents who want to access sites like Pornhub, OnlyFans, and NSFW communities on Reddit will now need to provide facial-recognition data and/or an official government-issued ID or banking provider-based age confirmation, using government-approved third-party verification services like Yoti or Persona. The new rules also apply to online dating services like Hinge, Bumble, Grindr, and Tinder.
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Tech platforms that don't comply risk fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their annual turnover, whichever is greater.
In the US, multiple states have enacted similar age restrictions on adult content. These laws are standing up to legal scrutiny, with Pornhub being served a defeat in its Supreme Court appeal of the Texas law earlier this month.
Many within the UK have been critical of the new age restrictions, with James Baker, program manager at Open Rights Group, claiming that UK citizens are "being forced to hand over sensitive personal data to unregulated age assurance providers if they want to have full access" to many platforms, saying this could open them up threats like phishing, hacking, and data leaks.