Prior to now, corporations would confirm the ages of customers primarily based on the birthdate they enter. It was hardly foolproof, as anybody might enter any date of start they wished. However that’s altering. Extra corporations are implementing extra superior age verification instruments, however in response, it appears that there’s a spike in VPN downloads as properly.
VPN downloads spike following age verification implementation
In a report from Cybernews, the corporate tracked Reddit posts discussing age verification and located some fascinating patterns. This contains a rise in talks about bypassing these checks, in addition to a rise in VPN downloads to probably bypass these age verification methods.
Reddit posts about bypassing age verification jumped from one thread in Might 2025 to 65 threads in April 2026. That’s 241 complete discussions over the total interval. It additionally seems that two occasions drove the sharpest spikes. The primary was when the UK’s On-line Security Act took impact on July 25, 2025; Reddit bypass feedback shot up 460% month over month. VPN downloads within the UK hit 2 million in August alone. Month-to-month UK downloads stayed above 1 million for many of the months that adopted. .
The second main spike got here when Australia enforced age checks for grownup content material in March 2026. Reddit bypass feedback rose 47% that month, and VPN installs almost tripled, topping 871,000.
Grownup content material prompted VPN downloads
What’s additionally fascinating and considerably telling is what really spurred the rise of VPN downloads. When Australia banned social media for under-16s on December 10, 2025, VPN exercise barely moved. It took grownup content material enforcement in March 2026 to supply an enormous surge. So the VPN downloads age verification hyperlink is tightest round grownup content material restrictions, not social media bans.
In accordance with Cybernews senior safety researcher Aras Nazarovas, it’s not solely minors driving the VPN downloads’ age verification spike. Privateness issues are a significant component too. Adults who don’t wish to hand over a authorities ID or undergo a facial scan are choosing VPNs as an alternative of complying.
Nazarovas mentioned, “So long as these strategies stay so privacy-invasive whereas bypass strategies stay extensively accessible, these legal guidelines are unlikely to realize their supposed impact.”
