Public data does not show how many people in Swindon have downloaded a VPN this year, so any local estimate would be speculative. What used to be a niche tool for the tech-curious has become more visible, first with the move towards working from home and now amid changing rules for internet access.
The more recent trigger was the UK's Online Safety Act, which, nearly a year ago, required sites hosting adult content to run robust age checks. That can mean ID uploads or facial scans rather than a simple tick-box. What constitutes adult content can be broad, including alcohol forums on Reddit or, more concerningly, alcohol recovery spaces on Reddit. In some cases, users may need to prove their age by photographing a driving licence.
The response was immediate, unsurprisingly. Proton VPN reported hourly sign-up increases of over 1,400% on the day of enforcement. VPN apps briefly dominated the UK's free app charts. Ofcom has been clear that platforms can't actively encourage people to use a VPN to dodge the checks, though using one yourself remains entirely legal, and in most cases it’s implicitly assumed.
What people find once they're elsewhere
Once someone's got a VPN running for privacy reasons, they tend to keep using it for all sorts of reasons. Sure, they might care about shielding their activity from their ISP, but they’re probably hanging around for the way a virtual location can change the catalogue available on streaming sites. Different films and shows can appear when using different servers. The same goes for video game lobbies - if you’re up at 3am, why not join the lobbies of a country that is a few hours east of you? Different matchmaking pools can also give you access to regional betas, or simply different types of competitors.
Changing virtual location can also alter which versions of streaming platforms, gaming services and other digital content a user encounters. The same regional variation can apply to regulated gambling content: for example, material about the online casino Canada market may appear alongside other region-specific services. This does not mean that access or participation is permitted; availability, age requirements, platform terms and legal conditions depend on the service and jurisdiction. The example illustrates how VPNs can expose regional differences in online entertainment without presenting gambling products as a recommendation or discovery benefit.
The trade-off
None of this is really about evasion for its own sake. Most people picking up a VPN this year did it because they didn't want to hand over a passport scan to verify they wanted to watch a video, and the side effect was discovering a wider internet sitting just one server-switch away.
The Online Safety Act is incredibly popular among Brits, just as social media for under-16s is. And actually, both run into the same problem: VPNs. But, the government isn’t ignorant to this, and claims it’s not about stopping all activity, just that stopping some is a success.
Privacy campaigners see it as an overreach of power and surveillance, accusing the internet of losing its right to privacy. Of course, to some degree, we lost that a long time ago to cookies and trackers.
Assessing the policy’s effects will require evidence over time, including how platforms apply the rules and how users respond. Its successes, limitations and privacy implications therefore remain open to evaluation.
