The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) has issued a stark warning: virtual private networks (VPNs) are being increasingly exploited to circumvent online age verification systems, creating what the agency describes as “a loophole in the legislation that needs closing.” The EPRS briefing — published in January 2026 and drawing renewed attention this week — arrives as governments across Europe and the United States continue to expand mandatory age-check requirements for digital platforms.

VPNs are privacy tools designed to encrypt internet traffic and mask a user’s IP address by routing connections through remote servers in other jurisdictions. While they are widely used for legitimate purposes — protecting communications, enabling secure remote work, and bypassing censorship — regulators are now increasingly alarmed that the same technology allows minors to sidestep regional age controls simply by appearing to connect from an unregulated country.

“Current age assurance measures — including verification, estimation and self-declaration — are relatively easy for minors to bypass.”

— European Parliamentary Research Service, January 2026

A Surge in VPN Downloads After New Laws

The EPRS notes a sharp rise in VPN usage following the enforcement of mandatory age verification laws in several jurisdictions. In the United Kingdom, after the Online Safety Act (OSA) came into force in July 2025 — requiring platforms to implement robust age checks or face heavy fines — downloads of VPN applications skyrocketed. One VPN developer reported an increase of approximately 1,800% in downloads within the first month of the OSA taking effect. Proton VPN separately disclosed that UK-based signups surged by nearly 2,000% in the hours immediately following enforcement.

The dynamic is straightforward: by connecting to a VPN server located in a country without age-verification mandates, a user’s device appears to originate from that jurisdiction — allowing them to access age-restricted content without triggering local compliance checks. The EPRS briefing explicitly identifies “bypassing geographical restrictions on online content” as among the primary use cases for VPNs in the context of child protection.

Key Developments at a Glance
  • EPRS January 2026 briefing labels VPNs a legislative loophole in child-safety laws
  • UK Online Safety Act (July 2025) triggered a reported 1,800%+ spike in VPN downloads
  • UK House of Lords voted 207–159 in January 2026 to ban VPN access for under-18s
  • England’s Children’s Commissioner called for age verification requirements on VPN services
  • Utah’s SB 73 (effective May 6, 2026) defines user location by physical presence, not IP address
  • EU Commission’s age verification app found to have critical security flaws in April 2026
  • France’s “double-blind” model praised as a privacy-preserving verification approach

Political Pressure Mounts in the UK

The United Kingdom has become a focal point of the VPN debate. In January 2026, the House of Lords passed an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill by a margin of 207 votes to 159, which would require action to prohibit VPN services from being provided to children in the UK. The amendment has since returned to the House of Commons for further consideration and has not yet become law.

England’s Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has been outspoken on the issue. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, she described the ability to bypass age checks via VPNs as “absolutely a loophole that needs closing” and called for age verification to be applied to VPN access itself. Privacy advocates and VPN providers have strongly opposed such measures, arguing that forcing identity checks on VPN users would undermine anonymity, expose users to surveillance risks, and damage data security for the millions of adults who rely on VPNs for legitimate purposes.

“Of course, we need age verification on VPNs — it’s absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that’s one of my major recommendations.”

— Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, BBC Newsnight

Utah Breaks New Ground in US Legislation

On the other side of the Atlantic, Utah became the first US state to directly address VPN circumvention in law. Senate Bill 73 (SB 73), which took effect on May 6, 2026, defines a user’s location based on their physical presence rather than their apparent IP address — meaning that using a VPN or proxy service does not change a platform’s legal obligations with respect to that user. The law signals a significant shift in how legislators are thinking about enforcement in an era of widespread VPN use.

EU’s Own Age Verification App Exposed to Flaws

Compounding the challenge, the European Commission’s official age verification app — released as a privacy-preserving tool under the Digital Services Act (DSA) — was found in April 2026 to contain serious security vulnerabilities. Security researcher Paul Moore discovered that the app stored facial images from identity documents as unencrypted files, and that its biometric authentication could be entirely bypassed by toggling a single Boolean value in a configuration file. Moore demonstrated a full circumvention in under two minutes. The findings highlighted the difficulty of implementing technically robust age assurance at scale.

Promising Models: France’s Double-Blind Approach

The EPRS briefing points to France’s “double-blind” verification system as a more privacy-conscious model worthy of broader adoption. Under this approach, a website receives only a binary confirmation that a user meets the age threshold — without learning the user’s identity. Simultaneously, the verification provider cannot see which website the user is visiting. This design limits data exposure on both ends and offers a potential template for EU-wide standards.

The European Parliament had previously adopted a resolution in November 2025 supporting age verification methods and calling for a European digital age limit of 16 for social media. The EPRS briefing now extends that policy conversation to cover VPN services explicitly, suggesting that future revisions to the EU Cybersecurity Act may introduce child-safety requirements specifically designed to prevent VPNs from being used to circumvent legal protections.

Privacy vs. Child Safety: An Unresolved Tension

The core tension remains unresolved: VPNs are widely used by adults for entirely legitimate and privacy-critical purposes, including by journalists, activists, corporate employees, and security professionals. Imposing age verification on VPN services themselves would require users to submit personal identity data to VPN providers — the very entities people use to avoid such data collection. Critics argue this would fundamentally compromise the privacy guarantees that make VPNs valuable in the first place, and potentially create new honeypots for data breaches.

The EPRS briefing does not offer a definitive technical solution to VPN circumvention. Rather, it frames the issue as a pressing regulatory challenge requiring coordinated legislative action across EU member states — and signals that the bloc’s policymakers are closely watching developments in the UK and the US as they consider their next steps.