I hope this causes websites to start blocking UK users. That would cause VPNs to become more common, undermining the government's enforced logging of internet use.
My immediate thought as well. As this law will apply to ANY service available to UK users the only feasible solution for smaller websites and app developers will be exclusion to avoid liability. So UK users will simply start using VPNs to by pass region blocks.
My first reaction to this was that VPN usage will explode, but I'm not sure how a VPN server hosted in another country would work with their desire to effectively ban encryption.
I feel like the UK is slowly goose stepping its way to a Chinese style firewall.
Given the right's obsession with what I'm ordering on Amazon, and the left being essentially unelectable right now, I'm not really sure where to put my vote at the next election.
Something is very rotten if we came to the point where one can not express speech freely in countries like UK. If that is the case VPNs are going to be a giant market.
The internet is fortunately not part of UK territory. Websites will just block UK IPs, if they do anything at all. People in the UK will use VPNs to access the content they want and the world will go on as normal.
yeah the national law aspect is interesting, and I could see it really taking off as new restrictive laws get passed in specific countries.
To take one example the UK Online Safety Bill could make access to a load of content trickier (or even cause companies to stop offering services in the UK) at which time I expect a load of UK people will start using VPNs to shift their traffic to appear to come from non-UK locations.
-A suitable VPN will make it appear that you are in a country with more enlightened censorship laws than the UK.
I can hardly see say, SwissVPN adapting the block list for customers whose traffic originates in the UK.
The upside of this whole debacle is that the UK government have finally created a strong incentive for the UK population to educate themselves on online privacy and censorship evasion; the EFF should send Theresa May a (snarky!) thank you-note.
I hope it leads to more use of VPN and like. The added advantage would be that your ISP and GCHQ can not easily tap into your online activities, and you'll always have plausible cover of using VPN to hide your pornographic habit.
There is a bit of confusion, because this law was effectively dropped in 2019 but then resurrected and passed in 2023.
Enforcement is due to start in 2025, with Ofcom currently exploring feedback from industry and users.
People will be supposed to authenticate with official ID (passport, driving license, etc) when connecting to porn sites from the UK. Obviously the VPN market is already on the case - the question really is whether the porn industry will fight VPNs, which is unlikely. The biggest sites will likely just go for token efforts to show goodwill.
The end result is likely to be a growth in VPNs (which will also affect the other big internet-censorship tool from the UK government: silent DNS blocking) and more traffic getting diverted from highly-visible and highly-moderated sites (e.g. Pornhub) to smaller, rogue sites where everything goes. So an own goal, in practice; but pearl-clutchers won't be happy until the whole web resembles a sanitized Disneyland park, so expect even worse laws.
And internet freedom in the rest of the world, by extension. If they go through with this nonsense, a lot of EU politicians will push for similar things, with the excuse that "if the UK can do it, why can't we?".
A few commenters are already saying this is the thin end of the wedge, or that any sites that don't strongly identify UK users will be effected. Realistically this isn't going to happen.
The UK government often come out with annoucements like this; and pretty rapidly retreat when they realise that their proposals are impractical, or just let the idea die quietly.
ISPs don't want to do this, and the BBFC (a not particularly high-tech organisation of less than a hundred people) don't have the capability to issue these notices on any significant scale, either manually or using machine learning. Does anyone know how much extra funding they're being offered to do this job?
(edited to add the obviously missing word "don't" in the first sentence)
I wonder what's the incentive there. I know ISPs in the UK have to block certain sites (involved in copyright infringement) but as far as I know no VPN services are included in there.
What do they gain by banning VPNs considering they already comply with the law by blocking direct access to forbidden websites?
> In evidence submitted to the UK’s parliament, network operator BT Group, which owns EE, said Private Relay would pose “significant challenges” if it is needed to block websites or services under the UK’s planned internet safety laws. However, many of these concerns apply equally to traditional VPNs too.
And thus the walls start to close in a little more around internet access in the UK. It won't be long before the usual voices start complaining that VPNs put children at risk and enable terrorists and cyber-criminals.
If the block itself is only a technical measure, it only boosts alternative access methods. But if they make it illegal to do things like watch port or download torrents without government permission, like they do now with the requirement to hand over private encryption keys to the officials require them, then GB will become worse than China in the freedom of information flow aspect.
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