Also on Friday, the Windscribe VPN service posted a screenshot on X claiming to show a spike in new subscribers. The makers of the AdGuard VPN claimed that they have seen a 2.5X increase in install rates from the UK since Friday.
Nord Security, the company behind the NordVPN app, says it has seen a โ1,000 percent increase in purchasesโ of subscriptions from the UK since the day before the new laws went into effect. โSuch spikes in demand for VPNs are not unusual,โ Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Securityโs head of public relations, tells WIRED. She adds in a statement that โwhenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, Internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.โ
People living under repressive governments that impose extensive Internet censorshipโlike China, Russia, and Iranโhave long relied on circumvention tools like VPNs and other technologies to maintain anonymity and access blocked content. But as countries that have long claimed to champion the open Internet and access to information, like the United States, begin considering or adopting age verification laws meant to protect children, the boundaries for protecting digital rights online quickly become extremely murky.
โThere will be a large number of people who are using circumvention tech for a range of reasonsโ to get around age verification laws, the ACLUโs Kahn Gillmor says. โSo then as a government youโre in a situation where either youโre obliging the websites to do this on everyone globally, that way legal jurisdiction isnโt what matters, or youโre encouraging people to use workaroundsโwhich then ultimately puts you in the position of being opposed to censorship-circumvention tools.โ
This story originally appeared on wired.com.
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