‘A cybersecurity disaster waiting to happen’ — The VPN industry reacts to the UK’s teen social media ban
Publish Date: 2026-06-16 12:19:00
Source Domain: www.techradar.com
- The UK government has announced a social media ban for under-16s
- Privacy advocates are concerned about the impact of increased age checks
- Some groups also argue that a ban will fail to protect kids online
The UK’s “world-leading” plan to protect teenagers with strict social media regulations has drawn immediate fire from privacy advocates.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that social media platforms will be required to prevent under-16s from using their services. Restrictions on certain harmful features and curfews are also being considered.
Privacy advocates and VPN companies are particularly concerned about the prospect of more frequent mandatory age verification checks. Justas Pukys, Senior Product Manager at Surfshark, told TechRadar: “While we fully support the goal of protecting minors, mandating that platforms collect government IDs for age verification is a cybersecurity disaster waiting to happen.”
More details on how the upcoming restrictions would work in practice — including whether VPN services will become age-restricted — are set to be disclosed next month, with implementation expected for Spring 2027.
Just a week earlier, Starmer handed Big Tech platforms another controversial ultimatum, giving them three months to implement on-device scanning technology to block children from viewing explicit images.
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The issues with age verification
(Image credit: Jaimi Joy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Mandatory age verification remains the primary concern for privacy advocates.
Romain Digneaux, public policy manager at Proton, points to last year’s leak of 70,000 Discord users’ government-issued ID photos as a stark reminder of the risks when age checks become a routine requirement for online platforms.
“We all must remember that age verification for children alone doesn’t exist. Age verification for children is age verification for everyone,” Digneaux told TechRadar, arguing that…
