Over 420,000 Brits want to repeal the UK Online Safety Act – here's how to have your say

• A petition to repeal the UK Online Safety Act has already reached over 420,000 signatures in just a few days
• The UK Parliament must consider for debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures
• New age verification rules were enforced on July 25, 2025, sparking concerns for people’s digital rights

A petition to repeal the UK Online Safety Act has garnered over 420,000 signatures in just a few days after strict new age verification requirements came into force.

Starting from Friday, July 25, 2025, all platforms displaying adult content must verify that all their users are over 18 years old via robust age checks. Social media, gaming services, and dating apps are also required to shield minors from harmful content via similar checks.

These requirements have sparked concerns among politicians, digital rights experts, and technologists who fear that invasive ID checks could lead to data breaches, surveillance, and free speech limitations.

“We believe that the scope of the Online Safety Act is far broader and restrictive than is necessary in a free society,” reads the petition created by Alex Baynham, a Londoner who launched a new independent party, Build, in December last year.

“We think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games, or even hamsters because it can’t deal with individual bad faith actors.”

While the UK Parliament must consider for debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures, Baynham encourages anyone concerned to have their say.

To do so, you should sign the petition, contact your MP, and explain the reason you are worried. The deadline is October 22, 2025. Yet, considering the huge response, a debate may be arranged way before that.

Age verification – what are the risks

The new rules certainly come as a way to stop children from accessing inappropriate and dangerous content online. Yet, age checks also come with significant risks for people’s privacy, security, and other rights like free speech and access to information.

You now need to be ready to scan your face, credit card, or ID document if you want to access some content on X, Reddit, or Bluesky in the UK. The same goes if you want to play a new over-18 video game, find a new match on a dating app, or watch a video reserved for adults only.

This involves you trusting these service providers to take good care of this highly sensitive data. Something that, as the recent Tea app hack shows, isn’t always possible. A data breach of this magnitude could expose millions of Brits to identity stolen, fraud, and other dangers.

Similarly, some experts also argue that getting rid of online anonymity could lead to higher surveillance by leaving such data access vulnerable to abuse.

Experts also fear the new rules could lead to higher censorship as platforms are now required to delete or block all content defined as harmful.

How to protect your data online

Despite the UK’s regulator, Ofcom, suggesting against it, Britons have been turning to the best VPN apps en masse to avoid giving up their most precious data to access a website.

Proton VPN, for example, saw a surge in sign-ups, recording an hourly increase of over 1,400% starting from Friday at midnight.

Talking to TechRadar, a Proton spokesperson said: “This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy.”

A reliable virtual private network (VPN) can boost your online privacy and security, in fact, by rerouting your internet connection via its secure, encrypted tunnel. This should minimize the risk of third-party snooping.

Crucially, a VPN also spoofs your real IP address, allowing you to evade mandatory age checks now in place in the UK.

“People just want to protect their privacy — and that’s completely understandable. Uploading a passport, scanning your face, or sharing banking details is simply too much for many,” said AdGuardVPN‘s Chief Product Officer, Denis Vyazovoy.

If you’re looking for a trustworthy way to protect your online data, TechRadar reviewers ranked NordVPN as the best VPN app on the market right now, thanks to its impeccable privacy, tons of useful security features, a great unblocking track record, and fast speeds.

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