Is it illegal to circumvent age verification checks?

Tom's Guide

a day ago

With the introduction of the Online Safety Act in the UK, citizens will now need to verify their age in order to access explicit content. Age verification techniques can vary between platforms, from scanning a photo ID to inputting your payment card details.
While there are now an estimated 5 million age checks being completed every day in the UK since the OSA's introduction on July 25, 2025, not all UK citizens are willing to comply with the act, citing concerns regarding data privacy and safety.
Some are turning to workarounds, like the best VPNs, to circumvent the age verification checks and avoid submitting their personal or sensitive information in order to access content restricted by the Online Safety Act.
The Online Safety Act itself requires websites and social media platforms to introduce greater controls on the content hosted on their platforms, including requiring age checks to view adult content.
As per the Act, all "search services and services that allow users to post content online or to interact with each other" must abide by the Online Safety Act and ensure that appropriate age restrictions are set, to avoid children accessing harmful content.
For sites or platforms that host explicit content, this must include "technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair" age verification checks.
This includes sites such as Reddit, X and even Spotify have introduced age checks for users.
It is also illegal for sites and platforms to promote circumventing the OSA, with legal action already being taken against a site which directly told users to use a VPN in order to get around the age verification check.
If any sites violate the law, they can be fined up to £18m (roughly $24m) or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. In the case of more serious violations, they could face court-imposed sanctions from third-parties like internet providers leading to the entire site or platform being blocked or restricted in the UK.
So, while the OSA has clear rules for websites and social media platforms, it does not introduce any laws for individual citizens.
So, if UK citizens do choose to use a VPN to avoid age verification checks, this is not illegal. In fact, the head of OFCOM, Melanie Dawes, told MPs in May that 'individual users can use VPNs" as "nothing in the Act blocks it", although she did point out that OFCOM takes a "very dim view" of the promotion of using VPNs to circumvent age verification.
However, while the OSA does not provide any guidelines for internet users themselves, members of the UK government have made statements regarding VPN use to circumvent age verification.
Labour Party Tech Secretary Peter Kyle has said that the Online Safety Act "marks the most significant step forward in child safety since the internet was created" and that "age verification keeps children safe". Kyle also stated via X that those who want to overturn the Online Safety Act are "on the side of predators".
While some concerns were raised about the UK government banning VPNs due to their ability to circumvent age checks, Kyle has also said that there are no plans to ban VPNs.
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