> may make provision for the provider of a relevant VPN service to apply to any person seeking to access its service in or from the UK age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not that person is a child
"The law we made is like super duper good!!"
> Children may also turn to VPNs, which would then undermine the child safety gains of the Online Safety Act
"The law we made is easily circumvented :("
retired 1 hours ago [-]
Does that mean that VPN providers now need identification before you can open an account?
armada651 34 minutes ago [-]
If this becomes law, then yes. But then people will turn to VPS providers instead and set up their own VPNs, which will then prompt a law to demand age verification before renting any server. I wonder how far they're willing to go down this rabbit hole.
landl0rd 23 minutes ago [-]
You're implying pervasive KYC and tying everything to your real-life identity is some unfortunate side-effect rather than a deliberate end. I have contempt for people who pass policies such as these but I do not think them foolish; they are likely aware of what will happen.
dlisboa 8 minutes ago [-]
All of this would easily be solved by just banning social media. Nothing will convince me they are a net-positive to society.
retired 3 minutes ago [-]
At the risk of doing an "you participate in society", would that include HN?
gnarlouse 18 minutes ago [-]
Age verification to wake up in the morning, age verification to breathe air, age verification to use the restroom, age verification t...
gruez 18 minutes ago [-]
>If this becomes law, then yes.
Or they just operate outside of UK jurisdiction, in which case they can politely decline. Any executives/directors of said company might be liable to arrest if they decide to vacation in uk, though.
HDThoreaun 12 minutes ago [-]
The UK already has ISP's blocking sites. Anyone that ignores the law will be blocked, will be interesting to see what happens if they end up blocking one of the cloud megascalers.
gjsman-1000 30 minutes ago [-]
Not necessarily - how is a kid paying for a VPS server?
A personal debit card (which requires ID verification anyway, and likely has their parents able to see activity)? A personal credit card (which definitely requires ID + 18+)? Stealing their parents' card (works for like 5 days)? Does the VPS company block VPN ports without verification, similar to how most companies handle email? Do you think VPS services have any interest, at all, in an underage clientele?
The proposed law is plenty effective - saying otherwise is like saying kids can bypass age verification at the knife shop or alcohol store by using eBay. No sane mind says that age verification is therefore useless.
whatshisface 22 minutes ago [-]
If having a credit card and the ability to make purchases was good enough as an ID system, they could have simply made it the law instead of requiring tech companies to collect those sweet, sweet personal ID document photos.
gjsman-1000 21 minutes ago [-]
The UK law doesn't say you have to use ID photos, that's porn companies knowing that charging even £1 a visit would be devastating to the business. Credit card verification is a completely legal method in the UK.
whatshisface 19 minutes ago [-]
They can check for credit cards without requiring any payment. Are you sure that's sufficient given these vaguely worded laws? If so many HN readers could solve the whole problem by making websites which issued digital signatures of random numbers to anyone who can support a £0.01 debit which is then immediately reversed.
gjsman-1000 19 minutes ago [-]
The problem is porn companies know full well nobody, nobody, wants that on their credit card statement. Kinda weird that something supposedly as natural as rain needs such levels of privacy; the hypocrisy is notable (if it's so natural and so many people do it, own it).
whatshisface 18 minutes ago [-]
They can have whatshisface's digital certificates, Inc. on their statements.
gruez 17 minutes ago [-]
authorizations don't show up on statements, but still allow you to verify the card is valid
gjsman-1000 13 minutes ago [-]
Authorizations may not show on statements; but they are full well in financial records which could come up in court or a divorce claim later. Credit card companies are absolutely not allowed to turn a blind eye to any kind of usage.
No. This a motion within one house of Parliament and hasn't become law, nor is there any guarantee it will be. It's something to be aware of.
irusensei 23 minutes ago [-]
Did the CEO of Tor announced when age verification features will be implemented?
lacoolj 60 minutes ago [-]
Very shallow, naive approach to child safety. This is like banning children from riding scooters on a highway. They're just going to use a bike instead. Danger still exists.
VPNs are not the only way around this, so if you want to ban the "method of access" you need to be much more broad, and get the parents involved.
CJefferson 40 minutes ago [-]
But, we do ban children on scooters from roads in the UK, but they can go on bikes? I don't understand your metaphor.. what you are suggesting is what we do and it's sensible.
guerrilla 29 minutes ago [-]
I don't think they don't mean the same thing you mean by scooters. Difference in the language.
captainbland 20 minutes ago [-]
In fairness we essentially ban scooters from practically every public path/road but they're still everywhere
ASalazarMX 55 minutes ago [-]
A innefective mandate for the intended purpose, but a very effective mandate to know what adults use VPNs.
Between this and the repeated attempts at encryption backdoors, this is something I would expect from a totalitarian regime that is preparing for civil unrest, not the UK.
TheCraiggers 39 minutes ago [-]
> but a very effective mandate to know what adults use VPNs.
How? I suppose if the VPN services all started requiring age verification that might tell you this info. But I very much doubt that'll happen, as it runs completely counter to many legitimate VPN services' missions.
kelseyfrog 43 minutes ago [-]
It's like banning children from owning and carrying handguns. They still have knives and ultimately fists. We cannot eliminate harms, therefore we should not attempt to reduce harms.
romanovcode 49 minutes ago [-]
> Very shallow, naive approach to child safety.
It's naive of you to think this has anything to do with the child safety.
ares623 13 minutes ago [-]
Every time this comes up I always take the opportunity to suggest that it should've been a ban on _smart_phones. Not dumb phones, not laptops, not even tablets (i.e. those without sim).
Easier to enforce, you don't have to rely on the very same companies that peddle the thing you're trying to ban in the first place. It can disrupt the network effects that could hopefully be enough to let people voluntarily cut it out of their lives. People are primed to get rid of it, but can't because it is so addicting and said network effects.
Same way as they do with porn? Massive fines. Or the threat thereof.
antonvs 47 minutes ago [-]
I foresee a lot of VPN companies starting to offer "secure proxy" services or something like that. "It's not a VPN, it's a secure proxy!"
advisedwang 36 minutes ago [-]
The law doesn't work like that. First of all, the actual regulation that gets made probably has a definition of VPN and won't rely on a company self-describing as VPN. Secondly law enforcement and courts aren't idiots*
* well, many of them are. But not in the particular way that would be needed for a simple rename to work.
guerrilla 28 minutes ago [-]
Proxies aren't VPNs though. They didn't mean call proxies VPNS, they meant provide proxies.
ck2 24 minutes ago [-]
ah the country of brexit has more "clever ideas"
something I find myself saying often lately watching BBC News every morning
How about Cloudflare Warp? And don't some browsers like Opera have builtin VPN?
After enforcing age verification to prevent children from viewing those pesky Gaza genocide videos that Israel did not want them to see, they gotta ensure that those brats wont be able to get around it and still see the videos.
Its amazing how this censorship was brought on rapidly and precisely after Netanyahu demanded it at the start of last year. No surprise as half of Starmer government was funded by zionists.
landl0rd 21 minutes ago [-]
I really don't think governments need a kick in the tail from a foreign power to try to grab more power. It's just what they do by nature.
AlexandrB 16 minutes ago [-]
Not sure what you're going on about. I don't think children should be watching any genocide videos. Is that something you watched a lot of as a child?
causalscience 14 minutes ago [-]
I'm in the UK and I've been involved in advocating for this.
I find it utterly frustrating to read the "think of the children" mockery here on HN.
I argue that this is good.
There's many reasons why children having unfettered access to the internet and different campaigners care about different aspects, so I'm going to talk about the one I care about: addiction, destroyed ability to focus, and dopamine desensitization. In the UK (and elsewhere in the world, I imagine) there's a huge problem with people addicted to phones and children are especially vulnerable. I don't care if adults are vulnerable, they have to make their own decisions. But I care that parents that do everything right in terms of educating their children on how to be healthy with respect of phones (like me and my partner) then have to send their children to schools where they're given ipads. It's not fair to say "banning doesnt work you should just not give your children phones", but then force you to send your children to schools that give them ipads and other distractions.
It's a matter of network effects (something that HN loooves talking about). In addition to the fact that phones are engineered to be addictive, you have the fact that in many schools EVERY child is on social media, and so any family that wants to stay away has to decide between isolating their child from society, or selling themselves into the "engagement industry".
I think that banning is a valid approach. It won't be 100% effective, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that it will introduce friction (another thing that HN looooves talking about) and so will reduce the total number on children that is on social media and therefore reduce the social need for other children to be in.
So, we're adding friction to break or weaken the network effects that keep these cancer companies harming children in schools.
monsecchris 10 minutes ago [-]
The reason you want this is because the only way to implement it facilitates your tyranny and it still wont achieve what you pretend to desire.
miningape 4 minutes ago [-]
> I think that banning is a valid approach
Are we talking about VPNs or phones in general? Because somewhere in this we jumped from VPNs to phones in general, and these things are not equivalent.
A phone ban in general for children, maybe I could agree with you on. But, a VPN ban on those grounds alone is utterly pointless: it's not like there aren't millions of bits of internet crack children can find without a VPN.
Not addressing the actual concerns and instead pointing fingers at a totally different, larger issue reeks of "won't somebody think of the children". All with the convenient downstream effect of revealing which citizens own VPNs.
4fterd4rk 26 minutes ago [-]
UK nanny state makes it an nonviable place to live. It's pervasive from the moment you step off the plane at Heathrow and see the inane safety stickers covering every surface "WARNING: DOOR" "WARNING: WATER FROM HOT TAP IS HOT" as well as the CCTV cameras.
causalscience 13 minutes ago [-]
> "WARNING: WATER FROM HOT TAP IS HOT"
LOL are you talking about the US? With their "don't put the cat inside the microwave" stickers and the "coffee is too hot" lawsuits?
epiccoleman 3 minutes ago [-]
> With their "don't put the cat inside the microwave" stickers
not sure what this means, my microwave does not have such a sticker
> "coffee is too hot" lawsuits
I'd encourage you to look into the case you refer to[1] and decide for yourself whether the lawsuit feels frivolous given the facts. My read is that the lawsuit was justified.
Stella Liebeck was seriously injured by that McDonald's coffee and it's a myth perpetuated by the McDonald's PR team that it was a frivolous lawsuit. She was in the hospital for eight days and required skin grafts. Do some research.
Rendered at 19:29:47 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
"The law we made is like super duper good!!"
> Children may also turn to VPNs, which would then undermine the child safety gains of the Online Safety Act
"The law we made is easily circumvented :("
Or they just operate outside of UK jurisdiction, in which case they can politely decline. Any executives/directors of said company might be liable to arrest if they decide to vacation in uk, though.
A personal debit card (which requires ID verification anyway, and likely has their parents able to see activity)? A personal credit card (which definitely requires ID + 18+)? Stealing their parents' card (works for like 5 days)? Does the VPS company block VPN ports without verification, similar to how most companies handle email? Do you think VPS services have any interest, at all, in an underage clientele?
The proposed law is plenty effective - saying otherwise is like saying kids can bypass age verification at the knife shop or alcohol store by using eBay. No sane mind says that age verification is therefore useless.
That it has its own Wikipedia page is a sign of the abuse of this argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
VPNs are not the only way around this, so if you want to ban the "method of access" you need to be much more broad, and get the parents involved.
Between this and the repeated attempts at encryption backdoors, this is something I would expect from a totalitarian regime that is preparing for civil unrest, not the UK.
How? I suppose if the VPN services all started requiring age verification that might tell you this info. But I very much doubt that'll happen, as it runs completely counter to many legitimate VPN services' missions.
It's naive of you to think this has anything to do with the child safety.
Easier to enforce, you don't have to rely on the very same companies that peddle the thing you're trying to ban in the first place. It can disrupt the network effects that could hopefully be enough to let people voluntarily cut it out of their lives. People are primed to get rid of it, but can't because it is so addicting and said network effects.
* well, many of them are. But not in the particular way that would be needed for a simple rename to work.
something I find myself saying often lately watching BBC News every morning
How about Cloudflare Warp? And don't some browsers like Opera have builtin VPN?
What about tunnels like Hurricane Electric?
Its amazing how this censorship was brought on rapidly and precisely after Netanyahu demanded it at the start of last year. No surprise as half of Starmer government was funded by zionists.
I find it utterly frustrating to read the "think of the children" mockery here on HN.
I argue that this is good.
There's many reasons why children having unfettered access to the internet and different campaigners care about different aspects, so I'm going to talk about the one I care about: addiction, destroyed ability to focus, and dopamine desensitization. In the UK (and elsewhere in the world, I imagine) there's a huge problem with people addicted to phones and children are especially vulnerable. I don't care if adults are vulnerable, they have to make their own decisions. But I care that parents that do everything right in terms of educating their children on how to be healthy with respect of phones (like me and my partner) then have to send their children to schools where they're given ipads. It's not fair to say "banning doesnt work you should just not give your children phones", but then force you to send your children to schools that give them ipads and other distractions.
It's a matter of network effects (something that HN loooves talking about). In addition to the fact that phones are engineered to be addictive, you have the fact that in many schools EVERY child is on social media, and so any family that wants to stay away has to decide between isolating their child from society, or selling themselves into the "engagement industry".
I think that banning is a valid approach. It won't be 100% effective, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that it will introduce friction (another thing that HN looooves talking about) and so will reduce the total number on children that is on social media and therefore reduce the social need for other children to be in.
So, we're adding friction to break or weaken the network effects that keep these cancer companies harming children in schools.
Are we talking about VPNs or phones in general? Because somewhere in this we jumped from VPNs to phones in general, and these things are not equivalent.
A phone ban in general for children, maybe I could agree with you on. But, a VPN ban on those grounds alone is utterly pointless: it's not like there aren't millions of bits of internet crack children can find without a VPN.
Not addressing the actual concerns and instead pointing fingers at a totally different, larger issue reeks of "won't somebody think of the children". All with the convenient downstream effect of revealing which citizens own VPNs.
LOL are you talking about the US? With their "don't put the cat inside the microwave" stickers and the "coffee is too hot" lawsuits?
not sure what this means, my microwave does not have such a sticker
> "coffee is too hot" lawsuits
I'd encourage you to look into the case you refer to[1] and decide for yourself whether the lawsuit feels frivolous given the facts. My read is that the lawsuit was justified.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...