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The United Kingdom’s stringent new age verification rules for adult websites have ignited a surge in VPN usage and sparked an unexpected, highly creative workaround involving a popular video game.
When the UK began strictly enforcing its age verification requirements, many anticipated an uptick in Virtual Private Network (VPN) adoption. Data from VPN provider Proton now confirms this expectation. The company reported a staggering 1,400% increase in logins from the UK on a single Friday, directly attributing the surge to the stricter enforcement of the Online Safety Act. This legislation mandates rigorous ID checks for accessing pornography websites and other age-restricted content.
The rise in interest isn’t limited to VPN logins. Proton also shared a chart revealing that Google searches for “Proton” originating from the UK amplified by nearly 100-fold on the same day. Other prominent VPN services, such as NordVPN, have likely experienced similar spikes as British users seek to circumvent the new restrictions by routing their internet traffic through international servers.
Following the July 25th expansion of the Online Safety Act, major platforms like Pornhub and XHamster, along with social media giant Reddit, began displaying mandatory age verification gates when accessed from UK IP addresses. The days of simply clicking a button to confirm you’re over 18 are over. The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, now demands age verification through methods such as photo uploads, video checks, credit card details, phone number verification, or official ID cards.
This trend of enhanced age verification isn’t unique to the UK. Proton also noted a 1,000% jump in logins from France in June after Pornhub blocked access for French users in response to similar national legislation. Several U.S. states, including Texas, have also started implementing their own age verification protocols, highlighting a growing global push for online age restrictions.
Beyond VPNs, a particularly ingenious and amusing workaround has emerged, especially for platforms like Discord, which has introduced its own age gate in the UK for users attempting to change settings or access age-restricted channels.
System designers for age verification platforms anticipated that users might try to submit static photos of older adults to avoid sharing their personal information. However, what they didn’t foresee was the remarkable realism and manipulative capabilities of modern video game photo modes. While uploading a picture of a well-known stock photo model (like “Hide the Pain Harold”) might initially pass some checks, systems often require users to open and close their mouths to prove they are a real, moving person.
Enter Death Stranding. Users discovered that the game’s highly detailed photo mode allows players to manipulate character facial expressions, including mouth movements. In a remarkable demonstration of user ingenuity, screenshots show how holding a phone camera up to a TV displaying in-game footage from Death Stranding, with character expressions adjusted, can successfully bypass Discord’s age verification system. PC Gamer has reportedly confirmed this unexpected trick works.
The Online Safety Act continues to draw significant criticism over potential privacy concerns. However, the immediate surge in VPN usage and the discovery of such clever, game-based workarounds underscore the profound difficulty, if not outright impossibility, of strictly enforcing online age verification in the digital age.