UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Status and legislative context

  • The VPN ban is a single amendment from three members of the House of Lords, not government policy yet.
  • Commenters explain that the Lords can propose and delay but the elected Commons has primacy; many amendments die in this back‑and‑forth.
  • Some ask whether this is “fringe whackjobs” or a real threat; others note similar “fringe” ideas have a habit of returning until something passes.

Stated goals vs perceived motives

  • Officially the driver is child protection, extremism, and enforcing previous online‑safety laws that are easily bypassed via VPNs.
  • Many see “think of the children” as a pretext to:
    • De‑anonymize the internet via mandatory age verification and digital ID.
    • Restore government and legacy‑media control over information and narrative.
    • Expand already‑active UK speech policing.

Free speech, extremism, and UK norms

  • Several posts argue the UK is already arresting thousands per year over online communications, blurring lines between threats, hate speech and political dissent.
  • Others counter that many such cases involve explicit incitement or threats and that the numbers and framing are exaggerated.
  • Tension is noted between US‑style absolutist free speech and UK/European traditions where “offensive” or extremist speech is more regulable.

Technical feasibility and circumvention

  • Commenters highlight trivial workarounds: Tor, free VPNs, SSH tunnels, foreign eSIMs, laptops vs phones, and “family” VPN accounts.
  • This leads to fears of an inevitable ratchet: if VPN bans fail, pressure will grow to restrict SSH, open Wi‑Fi, DNS, and even general‑purpose computers.

Digital ID, CSAM scanning, and surveillance trajectory

  • The proposal is tied to UK digital ID capabilities that let third parties verify attributes, seen as a backbone for universal age‑gating.
  • A separate clause requiring “tamper‑proof” anti‑CSAM system software on devices alarms people more than the VPN ban: it implies mandatory, unremovable on‑device surveillance and a legal attack on user‑controlled operating systems.
  • This is linked to Apple’s earlier CSAM‑scanning design and to similar pushes in Australia, Brazil and the EU; many see a coordinated Western trend toward 1984‑style monitoring, facial recognition, and “social credit”‑like control.

Alternatives and internal disagreements

  • Some support strong restrictions on kids’ social media but oppose identity‑linked enforcement, suggesting:
    • Age‑graded domains/TLDs and ISP‑level child VLANs.
    • Privacy‑preserving, attribute‑only digital credentials.
    • More parental education and device‑level controls rather than criminalisation.
  • Others argue that any such infrastructure is inherently ripe for abuse and that the only sustainable answer is cultural: media literacy, parenting, and accepting that the “optimal amount of crime is non‑zero.”