British record looking for VPN

The United Kingdom launched this Friday Its online Safety Act, a new regulation that forces various platforms to establish age verification systems. The excuse is to protect minors from access to harmful content for them – especially pornographic – but the activation of these requirements has caused a unique consequence: an absolute boom of VPN services.

Who has a VPN, has a treasure. And more and more. These VPN services (Virtual private networks) have just become the great allies of those who consume pornographic content in the United Kingdom, whether minors or not. It was demonstrated by the most unloaded applications rankings in the App Store this weekend: of the 10 most downloaded apps, five were VPNS apps (Virtual Private Networks).

The use of VPN is multiplied by 19. Such has been the impact of these measures that Chatgpt, which was the most unloaded app in the United Kingdom according to the classifications of the App Store, has now been surpassed by Proton VPN, one of the most popular services of this type. As indicated In Financial Timesthe Swiss company Proton, responsible for that service, said that the increase in records in its VPN app by British users was 1,800%.

Great Winners. Other VPNS apps such as those developed by the Super Unlimited or Nord Security companies also grew in popularity after the activation of the online Safety Act. In the case of Nordvpn, its developers told FT that growth in the United Kingdom had been 1,000%.

Because. These services allow users to simulate that they are visiting websites from a different country when enrupted traffic using IPS from any country that the user chooses. A minor British user who wants to visit pornographic content has it easy: it is enough to use one of these apps, configure it to simulate that he is sailing from another country without age verification controls, and continue navigating as if such a thing.

How the story has changed. The original purpose of VPN services is to protect communication to prevent someone from infiltrating it and can extract it. Although initially it was oriented to professional environments in which sensitive information is handled, today its use has become popular to prevent authorities from monitoring our use of the Internet. Thus, it is common for VPN users to use for discharges of author protected by author rights or pornographic content.

Five minutes to skip the controls. Using these services was somewhat more complicated in the past, but today starting them costs less than five minutes: it is enough to download them, pay the monthly subscription and choose the country from which we want to simulate that we are connected. Everything is theoretically hidden from regulators’ eyes, but there are certain risks.

VPNS can imprison our data. Years ago we had already notified that Many free VPNS They collected their own users’ data – to which they do access, since they are the intermediaries – in their own benefit, but even in the payment VPNs there are suspicions about it. Although many services presume “non -log policies that do not create records of our activity, some can do so. If not directly, yes by cross data, for example of use analyzes. In addition, these “Internet traffic stores” become dangerous repositories If they end up being hacked: the creators of a VPN service may be perfectly correct with the use of that data, but if someone infiltrates their platforms, that data would be exposed.

A prelude to what can happen in Spain and the EU. The age verification systems that have now entered into force in the United Kingdom are Starting to be implemented Also in Spain and in the European Union. In our country the controversial “Pajorte” –Officially, Beta Digital– It has become one of the reference projects. The European Commission He is working in A European digital identity which should be ready at the end of 2026 and that theoretically can also be used as part of an age verification system on websites.

Challenges and VPN in sight. As our Xatakamóvil colleagues, the Open Source app for Android that is being developed in the EU to verify the age in online services, It depends too much on Google: I would not work in mobiles with the Google operating system without a license – as in Huawei mobiles. Criticism They have already begun to appear, and show that once again that obsession for putting doors to the field is very delicate. Not only that: it will not help much because again the VPNs probably allow to avoid this type of controls.

VPNS rubbing his hands. With governments increasingly determined to try to control everything we say and do on the Internet, VPN services become the great indirect beneficiaries of these policies. If things follow this course, it seems clear that more and more users will end up hiring this type of services to try to avoid those controls.

Hello, China. The situation is such that remember which has been lived in China for years. There the surveillance and censorship imposed by the Government It is absolutely brutal at the time of Navigate onlineand it is only possible to escape from it through VPN services, which are also highly restricted and persecuted. The risk for Western countries, which until not long presumed not to have such restrictive policies, end up adapting them. They have been doing it for years, in fact: before the excuse was terrorism, and now it is the protection of minors.

Image | Petter Lagson

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