Britain’s MPs charge VPNs to expenses as minister urges caution

39 comments

1. >“For everybody who’s out there thinking of using VPNs, let me just say to you directly: verifying your age keeps a child safe, keeps children safe in our country. So, let’s just not try and find a way around,” he told the BBC. 

   Pwease don’t bypass our ridiculous law and hand over any last shreds of your anonymity, it’s for the children. 🥺

   And if you don’t you’re just as bad as the nonces Peter voted to cover up.

2. Plenty of porn is watched in the Houses of Parliament. Some of it will be verging on the edge of illegality. I have stocked up on popcorn when there is an age verification data breach.

3. Hypocrisy, thy name is politician.

   I wonder if Government internally has a list of which VPNs are safe, and which ones sell information and shouldn’t be used. Would be quite useful to publish that about now!

4. My work network uses a VPN as most companies do.

   Ironically I can access NSFW Reddit subs (not that I would) at work but not at home.

   Make that make sense

5. They are so, so utterly clueless. It’s actually insane.

   I remember children using proxies and VPNs to bypass school internet restrictions almost two decades ago. We’d use them to play Flash games, etc. Everyone knew about this and how to do it.

   Does the government really think a child in this day and age is going to simply give up once they are met with a ‘verify your age’ message? Absolute clowns.

6. Hang on a minute, saying that this is about children suggests that his message is aimed at adults. So he has issues with ‘adults’ bypassing age verification?

   Soo… the motive behind this is absolutely 100% not about children at all – what is the motive? Because I can’t think of a single one that isn’t something sinister

7. Seems like the MPs in question bought the VPN long before this law

8. Armed forces personnel have been able to expense VPNs for years. Its policy to use one when you are outside of the UK. It would be logical that, this would apply across the government.

9. Laws for thee not to for me… typical corrupt politicians…. what have they got to hide?

10. The question should be, why aren’t they on a vpn already? If I have to use one for my office it makes perfect sense that they should as well. All government Laptops and phones should be properly secured. If they are using the laptop to access sight they shouldn’t be then that is purely an HR issue.

11. Do as we say,
    Not as we do,
    One law for me,
    And one law for you

12. People are using VPN’s because they cannot 100% guarantee that our data will not fall into the hands of data brokers and worse and rightly so.

13. So far everything I’ve heard from Peter Kyle suggests he is an ocean going idiot who is totally out of his depth as technology secretary. It’s like having a Chancellor who doesn’t understand economics… Oh wait

14. I bought a VPN recently after the drama this OSA has caused. I am an adult. I don’t need to verify I am an adult to the government’s mystery third party. If I use the VPN, I am still legally looking at things I am allowed too. So why must I be treated like a child by the government? If the government ever demands that I do the check in future, then we know it’s not about protecting children.

15. Is anybody actually surprised? MPs don’t live by the advice they spew to their constituents. Did COVID teach people nothing?

    Boris on the telly saying “do the right thing” while they partied in their offices. Matt Hancock playing rugby with his kids unmasked in a packed park. Birthday parties, all kinds of shit.

    They’re all hypocrites.

16. I sent him an email to [KylePeter@hotmail.com](mailto:KylePeter@hotmail.com) about the Firefox extension he was asking about.

17. MPs are charging us for wanks ? How many wanks should the taxpayer fund per mp? Should there be a limit on the amount in any one parliament sitting?
    Does reform get a discount for being the biggest bunch of them ?

18. Alternative headline: MPs agree with the public, but don’t repeal the act.

19. That actually really pisses me off, they enacted this bill and now we’re paying for them to circumvent it.

    and yes I know VPN’s have legit uses, but you aren’t using commercial VPN’s for that, the domain controller in your network will likely have the routing and remote access role installed to facilitate a VPN for people outside the network.

20. Wankers. Every single one of them from the right all the way to the left. 

21. How does me verifying my age stop some
    Kids accessing adult content?

22. But the MPs are only using VPNs to look at pictures of Tractors – allegedly

23. Classic one rule for the many and one rule for us.

    Like the COVID parties and all the other nonsense going back forever.

24. If a child decides to download a vpn to use to bypass the restrictions that means 2 things;

    1. The act itself is toothless as its purpose is to make websites take measures to not present inappropriate content to children and vpns are nothing to do with the websites being targeted.

    2. Parents of these children are failures who should be sanctioned for not ensuring their children’s safety

    Putting aside my negative opinion of Peter Kyle, there will always be ways to get round the restrictions of the act and, the act itself is a joke until/unless it places the blame on the people actively seeking out the restricted content instead of the places providing the content.

25. >We make no apology for holding platforms to account, to ensure they prevent children from bypassing safety protections. This includes blocking content that promotes VPNs and other workarounds, when they are aimed specifically at young users.  

    So the plan is to try to make sure that anyone under the age of 18 doesn’t know VPN exists? To keep them safe? Aside from the obvious impossibility of this, VPN is an important security tool so people should know about it.

26. Is me using a VPN making it unsafe for a child?

    How is my verifying who I am keeping me or anyone else safe?

    Am i guarantee’d that when I do verify my information, that’s going to be kept safe, never leaked, and always kept private? No, I’m not.

    So I’ll continue using a VPN until it changes.

27. Oh god its no wonder this law is absolute trash, whenever I hear any of the MPs talk about it it’s absolute nonsense nobody believes in

28. Labour and Tory MPs should be banned from using VPNs. They should be made to suffer the same law they have inflicted on the rest of the country.

29. Why on earth isn’t GCHQ providing a VPN service for parliamentarians? At the very least some civil servants should have provided direction that people dealing with information of a highly sensitive nature should take appropriate security measures. Ffs I work in IT and we mandated VPNs for all remote access for company officers about 20 years ago. These guys aren’t just some twerps with a porn habit – they’re running the country so it’s kind of obvious their security should be provided and non-negociable.

30. To protect children I’m expected to hand over my ID docs and facial data to a shady US company? Yeah, fuck that mate… 

31. Let’s make a deal then, you show me solid legitimate proof that this protects children more than it benefits those who’d like to remove our rights to privacy and I’ll submit.

    Until then I’ll be using a vpn, like everyone fucking else (which now includes the dirtbags you used to track). – funny that. Who’d of thought pushing people to use means of complete obfuscation would also make it hard to track criminals. – I imagine this puts kids more at risk but hey you’re the experts.

32. Use a VPN that uses obfuscation, people.

    There’s quite literally no way for them to defeat that as it replicates normal traffic

    Let’s make their jobs as hard as possible.

    Fuck you for trying to remove my right to privacy.

33. The fucking irony ain’t it! And they have the audacity to charge it as an expense! This is unacceptable!

34. How does 39 year old me using a VPN affect a childs safety online? What a load of utter nonsense.

35. Literally just install opera browser and one click to turn on the free built in vpn

36. Hey UK the government is doing this for AI data purposes. This will not save a kid from whatever dangers lurk on the internet. UK govt has become a Nanny State

37. How many teenage boys will need to set the vpn up for their dads. The irony.

38. They say it’s to protect the children but where is the evidence that children have been harmed until now?

39. There are sites that dont ask for verification on the first page of search results when you search “porn”, this whole thing is pointless.

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