Age verification laws are killing web traffic
With the UK having recently brought the Online Safety Act into force, age verification laws are having a huge effect on traffic to web sites. Predictably, sites which comply with age verification requirements have noticed a marked drop-off in visitor numbers, while the opposite is true for non-compliant sites.
In the UK, it is – currently – only pornographic sites that are supposed to implement age verification (although other sites are supposed to take action to prevent minors from accessing adult material as well). Working via a combination of facial scans and documentation checks, the impact of the law has been felt very quickly.
Could the UK government really ban VPNs?
As we’ve been reporting over the past week interest in VPN use in the UK has spiked following concerns about the Online Safety Act and its age verification rules.
Inevitably the government has noticed the surge in VPN use and while it insists it has no plans to ban their use the science secretary, Peter Kyle, says it will be looking “very closely” at how they’re being employed.