The EPRS warns VPNs are being used to bypass mandatory age-verification laws and frames them as a regulatory gap requiring legislative action.
Key Takeaways
VPN downloads surged in the UK after age-verification laws took effect, prompting EPRS to label VPN access itself a legislative loophole.
Utah’s SB 73 is the first US law to counter this directly: it defines user location by physical presence, not IP, regardless of VPN use.
France’s “double-blind” verification lets sites confirm age without learning identity, and the verification provider never sees which site was visited.
The EU’s own age-verification app under the DSA framework was found storing biometric images unencrypted and exposing bypass vulnerabilities shortly after launch.
Future EU Cybersecurity Act revisions may impose child-safety requirements on VPN providers directly.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters widely disputed the headline framing: the EPRS paper appears to report that some argue VPNs are a loophole, not that the institution itself is calling for a ban.
There is broad skepticism that VPN growth actually reflects minors bypassing checks; the more plausible driver is adults avoiding identity disclosure friction, with cost acting as a natural minor barrier.
The China precedent surfaced as a serious structural concern: child-safety justifications have historically been used to consolidate platform power and suppress independent publishers.
Notable Comments
@nirui: draws direct parallel to China’s site-licensing regime, which used child safety framing to eliminate individual publishers and entrench large platforms.
@harvey9: argues the real VPN adversaries are commercial streamers protecting live sports geo-rights, not child-safety regulators.
