VPNs Now a Red Flag as Age-Check Lobby Cracks Down on Privacy
In Reclaim The Net, Cindy Harper warns that the Age Verification Providers Association wants to treat VPNs like a red flag, forcing invasive checks and turning anyone trying to stay private into a suspect. Here’s an excerpt.
A trade group representing companies that build age verification systems is now lobbying to extend these checks to anyone using a VPN in the UK. The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) wants online platforms that fall under the UK’s censorship law, the Online Safety Act, to not only detect VPN usage but also analyse user behaviour to guess whether someone might be a minor in disguise.
If flagged, users would face a prompt: prove your age, or allow a one-time geolocation to confirm you’re outside the UK.
According to the AVPA, this process is necessary because VPNs can mask users’ actual locations, allowing them to appear as though they are in countries where age verification laws do not apply. The association points to data showing a dramatic increase in VPN use around the time the UK’s new internet rules were enforced, suggesting people are using these tools to bypass restrictions.
This approach treats privacy tools as a form of defiance. Here, VPNs, once considered sensible and essential for online security, are being rebranded as suspicious.
Under the new logic, using a VPN could mean you are trying to break the rules. As the UK’s censorship machinery rolls out, AVPA wants to make sure even those trying to shield their data are pulled back into the system.
The justification is familiar: VPNs can hide user locations, letting people appear as though they are accessing the internet from places where the UK’s new rules do not apply. But rather than address the backlash driving VPN usage, AVPA is proposing a dragnet approach that monitors traffic patterns, assigns risk scores based on vague behavioral signals and then forces users to identify themselves or prove their physical location.
Privacy protections are being reclassified as regulatory gaps. VPNs, proxies and other location-masking tools are not illegal, but under the current model, platforms are discouraged from even mentioning them. And while Ofcom has stopped short of an outright ban, it has created a climate where using a VPN can make you a target for further scrutiny.
Worth reading in full.
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A little misleading as it’s not actually a thing, but it’s being pushed by age verification trade group.
It’s not actually a thing.
Yet.
That said, I’ll just keep obscuration a top priority. Resist at every opportunity basically.
I knew this would happen. Aside from professional obligation, I have never ever used VPN software.
So, as they say,
“Where the fool tries to look different, the wise man looks the same – but IS different.”
It must be really incredible to know everything about everything.
It must be, I guess you’re right.
But I told a little lie above – I did once use Tor Browser, to see if I could get around France’s block to view Rumble.com with a French phone. I could. So it works 😎
I imagine that having merely paid for a VPN service (Tor is free, but very slow) will soon be reason enough in their minds for them to arrest you.
You may think you’re a wise man but actually in this day and age doing anything online without a VPN is extremely risky not to say foolish. There are dozens of data breaches every day, some of them serious so protection is a wise precaution.
By far the single most effective thing you can do is have super complex passwords.
What you write is a huge exaggeration. Have you heard of https? SHA-512? TLS2.0? Blockchain?
So basically, you’re just going to roll over and think rebellious thoughts. .
Nope, I am also going to talk about them, in the bars, restaurants, to my guests, people in the street… Y know, the real world.
I can see a market for software that can change your location on your phone.
Disconnect from the phone network and you can, if you are connected you are triangulated and can’t.
Good points, just don’t use your phone if you can avoid. They are basically tracking devices. Their IMEI numbers are region specific as well as the google & Apple accounts which are pretty much mandatory to have installed now. Using an old fashioned computer will easily skirt around this.
An old fashioned computer… Not connected to the internet, I presume…?
Bring back internet cafés 🤣
So is my phone telling the trackers that I rarely leave my kitchen? It does, on occasion, migrate to the living room or upstairs but that’s about it.
If you are only connected to one tower (e.g. in remote areas) triangulation cannot happen. The clue is in the name.
But ‘they’ do know you’re in that remote area.
They know the phone is in that remote area. The radius of those remote areas can stretch to 25km. That’s a lot of remoteness.
You can switch off “localisation” on the phone.
Request: As a technological dinosaur, I have no idea what a VPN is, and I searched this article in vain to find out. Far back in the Mists of Time, it was customary for authors to say what abbreviations meant when first used in an article, for “the edification and amusement” of readers.
Virtual Private Network But that doesn’t help you understand what it is, hahaha, welcome to the world of IT. Basically, the reason most people use a VPN is that, when connected to a VPN, all your communication with the internet appears to originate from a different computer. That computer can be anywhere in the world. Modern VPN services allow you to choose which country that computer is in. This allows you to, for example, get around blocks which some countries place on specific websites, for example rumble.com is blocked in France (they have allowed someone to place videos saying hurty things about Macron and the jabs, amongst other things), but if you view rumble from France but via a computer in England then hey presto you can see rumble.com from your chair in France. There are other advantages to VPNs, e.g. it can be a lot harder for people to trace your real location – especially if your communication with the other computer is encrypted. There are some disadvantages too, for example because there is a not enormous list of computers functioning as popular VPNs, and because with a little automated analysis of traffic it is possible to identify new… Read more »
In addition to the above. Your data traffic is encrypted from your computer to and from the VPN server. This means your ISP (Internet Service Provider) cannot see or log which sites you have visited – so when nosey Governments order ISPs to hand over traffic logs to spy on people, your traffic will not be logged. The VPN doesn’t log your traffic either and most of them are based in Countries with strict privacy laws – not the UK nor USA obviously. Since your traffic is encrypted all the way to the VPN server, it cannot be intercepted, misdirected, or malware sent to your browser. However the final route for your traffic is from the VPN to the server hosting the site you want to visit. This last leg is not secure, but if it is intercepted it can provide no information about you since it is between the VPN’s server and the website, and nosey folk will see only the IP address of that server. Some VPN’s who have multiple IP addresses, automatically rotate them to confuse nosey folk, and to prevent sites blocking them. If a site blocks one IP address, the VPN can shut to another,… Read more »
I just looked them up. It looks like a solution in search of a purpose. They list such important things as age verification to enter s playground (get them young) socialising with other children online, going to the movies etc. We already have multiple methods of sorting this out. But children, why, so they can play with others? That’s s parental duty not an only box ticking money grubbing agency.
It’s a global association so probably something Blair has his tentacles in.
Usual companies signed up as supporters.
Whenever they say it’s about safety you know it’s about the opposite.
Whenever they say it’s about diversity, you know it’s about the opposite.
And so on.
An inverted, satanic world.
I can easily forsee a day when people posting on this website are arrested for islamophobia, or climate denial, or anything else that is controversial. It could become essential to use a VPN to maintain your liberty, or even to be able to access the website at all. VPNs are now an act of defiance, and rightly so. Your right, this is nothing to do with safety. It’s just the b*stards in charge doing everything they can to shut the people up.
Sorry if it comes to that I will be resisting in a mistake forceful manner.
Probably the only thing that will make a difference
Once peaceful protest becomes impossible some might say they will have signed their own death warrant.
I couldn’t possibly comment.
The truth is governments have always censored, D notices, injunctions etc, it was easy because they had control of the media.
With the coming of social media and the rapid expansion in the number of alternative news media sites more government lies and cover ups are exposed every day.
Politicians, bankers and BlackRock are getting a tad concerned and you can see why.
Just another example of how the elite create a solution for a non existent problem then create legislation or rules to manage it. Tony Blist is up to his neck in this, Soros, the EU, Blackrock, Vanguard etc. The way yo create fortunes. The railway revolution, the industrial revolution, etc all benefited Joe Public. These new creations repress Joe Public but the spineless bureaucracy passes this legislation to benefit the rich and enslave the public
Vanguard does not belong in that list. Vanguard, and the founder Jack Bogle (RIP), is the organisation which has done the most since its founding in 1975 to allow Joe Public to lift himself out of poverty.
It looks like a solution in search of a purpose Not really. It’s a solution being bent to another purpose than the one it was invented for. Back in the neolithic (actually early silicon) age, a VPN was a way of establishing a private network over the public network of networks (the Internet). It looked and behaved as though your computer was connected via a dedicated connection straight to your organisation’s servers. It behaved like you were in the same office – but much slower. If you built a VPN spanning various sites you could be connected to your organisation’s servers anywhere from Tokyo to Los Angeles (the long way around). It was Virtually a Private Network built on top of the Internet. One potential consequence of this was that if you then wanted to access public internet services such as the Los Angeles Times (for example) from inside your VPN you might appear to be accessing their web server from your company’s LA office even though you’re actually sat at a computer in Tokyo or (more significantly) Shanghai. The LA Times detects another user in LA and does not see that the user is actually the other side of… Read more »
If we use Star Link then the ‘ISP’ is provided by Mr Musk?
I’ve no doubt he would be very co operative with the UK Government…Chortle chortle …
I know somebody who uses Starlink because it is better than the broadband.
Mr Musk, believe it or not, has a long history of being very obedient when it comes to governments coming calling. Don’t fall for his spiel.
I don’t doubt you Marcus and thanks for the comment.. If I have learned anything during my three score and ten, it’s that people will always, without fail, do anything for money including casting aside any principles they may have. And when in doubt about anything, follow the money trail…
I’m no supporter of censorship in any form but it’s perfectly obvious why AVPA are doing this.
if everyone suddenly starts using VPNs then age verification ceases to be a thing and their gravy train hits the buffers. It’s not difficult to work out.
“A trade group representing companies that build age verification systems is now lobbying to extend these checks to anyone using a VPN in the UK.”
Company making money out of the legislation protecting it income.
Are we allowed to say “scumbags”?
“Grifters” is also fine.
The bad News… for some… a good VPN can “harden” their connexion and hide the fact traffic is from a VPN, particularly if that site blocks VPN traffic.
If you are “discovered” just change your location!
This is just a blatant attack on privacy.
If children are using VPNs to access porn sites, they can’t claim they are accessing it by accident, which is their claim to crack down.
They are actively finding it!
Also, if you can now vote at 16 or 17, are you still classed as a child?