A recent study from researchers at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the Universities of Newcastle and Durham, has found that Virtual Private Network (VPN) usage has increased under the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA).
Researchers analysed data from Google Trends and Reddit, finding that users’ online discussions about VPNs increased by 145 per cent in the UK, whilst Google searches for VPNs rose by 147 per cent.
A VPN creates an encrypted and secure connection between users’ devices and the internet by hiding individual IP addresses and jumbling data to prevent internet providers from tracking a user’s location or online activity.
This increase in VPN usage was concentrated around July 2025, when the OSA came into effect; researchers believed this was likely as many users were attempting to bypass age-verification restrictions.
The OSA is a set of UK laws and duties that require social media companies and search engines to protect users, particularly children, from illegal content and harmful material through age verification checks.
One student commented: “VPNs can be useful as they can protect your data” but admitted that they had never used one “as they can often be expensive.”
The University of Edinburgh has its own VPN, which is available to students and staff, primarily to allow them to access the University network and resources in remote locations that would be otherwise inaccessible.
Another student told The Student that they regularly used the university’s VPN whilst on their year abroad as “it allowed me to bypass geo-restrictions and access UK websites and TV shows from abroad.”
Photo by Privecstasy on Unsplash.
