British Adult Content Site Visits Falls Following Identity Verifications, But VPN Usage Surges, States Regulator

Visitor numbers to adult content websites in the United Kingdom has decreased markedly after the introduction of age-checking measures this summer, according to the country's communications regulator. Concurrently, the adoption of tools designed to dodge these barriers has risen.

Sharp Fall in Visitor Numbers After Law Implementation

The enforcement of age verification on 25 July resulted in an swift fall in traffic to leading online adult platforms, including the most visited provider in the UK. Figures reveals that user traffic to this site in August were 9.8 million, a drop of 1.5 million compared to the equivalent month in 2024.

In total, traffic to the 10 top pornography sites in the UK have now stabilized at a significantly reduced level than before the late July implementation date. Later analysis shows this downward trend in site visits persisted past August.

Surge in VPN Adoption to Bypass Checks

Reacting to the new regulations, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—which can get around location-based restrictions by masking internet traffic through another country—surged following 25 July.

Usage reached a high at more than 1.4 million in mid-August, up from approximately 650,000 people before the verification began. Subsequently, the watchdog noted that VPN usage has afterwards steadily declined, with current figures at around 900,000. It added that the level of regular VPN use remains “much lower” than traffic for pornography sites.

Teenagers Taking Action to Harmful Online Content

Elsewhere, the regulator's report revealed that about 60% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had taken action after seeing damaging content online. Actions ranged from flagging the content to the platform to blocking the person who shared it.

This research was conducted prior to new regulations came into force that compel social media companies to stop children from seeing harmful content, such as material related to suicide and pornography. The most common way teenagers came across such content was by scrolling through a social media timeline, suggesting that recommendation systems were showing inappropriate material.

Government Launch Review of Adult Content Laws

Separately, the ministers stated it would examine the criminal law relating to pornography to assess whether it is adequate in the modern digital age.

“The examination will look into the efficacy of the existing law in regarding criminalising, among other things, damaging portrayals of incest and any types of pornography which encourage the abuse of children,” stated a government official.

Campaigners Call For Stricter Digital Controls

Advocates for tighter control of online pornography have called on the authorities to ban so-called “barely legal” material. This encompasses content featuring incest scenes or that appears to promote abuse by casting young-looking performers portraying children.

Proposed changes to government bills aim to:

• Ban pornography where performers are mimicking children, sometimes filmed in settings like children’s bedrooms.
• Broaden the crime of creating an exploitative portrayal of a child to cover material where an older performer acts the part of a child.
• Apply tighter regulation on familial abuse pornography, which research suggests is heavily recommended by platform algorithms.
• Add further controls on “nudification” software, potentially making it an illegal act to possess software designed to generate private images without permission.
• Establish a new, separate regulatory body to perform spot checks on adult platforms and respond to reports of unlawful content.

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