Exclusive: Ofcom is monitoring VPNs following Online Safety Act. Here’s how

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/exclusive-ofcom-is-monitoring-vpns-following-online-safety-act-heres-how

by NXGZ

39 comments

  1. It’s coming guys…

    This is the list we’ll be joining-

    China
    Russia
    Iran
    United Arab Emirates
    Turkey
    Oman
    North Korea
    Turkmenistan
    Belarus
    Pakistan
    Egypt

  2. This is likely in preparation for targeting VPNs that allow users to bypass UK laws and are accessible in the UK. The UK government may claim otherwise, but their actions speak louder than words.

    > This comes after a tech minister, Baroness Lloyd, said in the UK House of Lords that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to protecting children online

  3. Everyone learn how to set up a VPS and do it now. Much harder to track or trace than a VPN and often cheaper too, I pay €2.15 a month for mine.

  4. This law has been a clown show from the beginning. It’s going to drive traffic towards sites with even less regulation and greater vulnerabilities. They really haven’t thought this through.

  5. Whilst I’m sure the government would love to know who is using VPNs this headline makes it sound way more sophisticated than it is. My bet would be that they just found a list of IPs that VPNs use and then divided the number of page views that VPNs use by the total pageviews in the UK. The caginess about the methodology for me is more likely to be Ofcom knowing their methodology is crap (meaning their 1.5 million claim is also likely crap) rather them having somehow bypassed the privacy VPNs are meant to bring.

  6. Famously if government claims there’s nothing to worry about, then there’s nothing to worry about, and if you say otherwise you’re a conspiracy theorist /s.

    Jokes aside, if they wanted to ban VPNs, then next step is onion networks.

    We *do not* want people to access these parts of Internet.

    At the moment only a miniscule number of people browse these parts, meaning that monitoring, while difficult is not impossible.

    Increase that by a tenfold, and due to complexity of onion networks, it becomes near impossible to track any given user.

    Add to that much greater availability of cryptocurrencies, and we are looking at a *serious* problem. Much more serious than anything OSA prevented in the first place.

  7. So many security tools which cover threat detection have native ways to detect if an IP is part of a VPN service, TOR or other categories such as botnets. If you work in a company which has any security function they’ll likely be using one.
    This isn’t novel and I doubt they weren’t doing it before the law came into place anyways.

    I hope I’m right in doubting that they’ll ban VPNs, since that will cause all party donors (aka large companies) to flip their shit. Maybe they’ll try and get pushed back or alternatively try to ban those that they cannot issue warrants to (I.e. those in privacy respecting countries and/or those that on purposely don’t retain logs).
    Either way, it’s not cool and I’d rather not have to deal with the speed of TOR if it comes down to it.

  8. If they ban VPNs, people aren’t gonna stop wanting privacy — they’ll just switch to TOR. And that’s way more dangerous long-term than letting people use VPNs legally.

  9. ‘Its to protect the kids’

    How many ‘kids’ are signing up to a VPN subscription? I estimate very, very few.

    They’re using kids as an excuse to throw more control..fuck em

  10. Gonna have a look to see if star link is bound by the laws of Britain or if because it’s satellite it’s a free for all and possibly invest in a set up

  11. Isn’t this just a nothing article? “no current plans to ban the use of VPNs”. Even if they did, there’s plenty of ways around that too!

  12. They won’t ban VPNs for businesses, they’ll just create a licencing system. Those who sign up, pay the corporate fees and jump through the security hoops will be allowed to access VPNs. But everyone else will be banned.

    They know the OSA is a massive failure and instead of admitting it they’re following the maga custom of doubling down on stupidity and enacting even more draconian surveillance threats to personal freedom.

    Just imagine what Farage and his jack booted thugs will do with the authoritarian population control Labour is handing him once Reform wins the next election…

  13. LOL. It’s a Yes/No monitoring.

    The answer is Yes. No need to spend money on monitoring that.

    No respectful VPN keeps session data at all.

  14. “Its third-party tool appears to have AI capabilities”.
    Nothing to worry about then, it’ll be spouting gibberish and giving a different answer every time it’s asked.

  15. I didn’t need to use a VPN to see Charlie Kirk’s neck explode. That impacted me a lot more than watching two consensual adults have sex.

  16. Ofcom should monitor the livestreaming apps properly. Would save a whole heap of abuse.

  17. They brought in digital ID’s without a risk assessment from the ICO about the safety of our data so we know they don’t really give a shit about online safety

  18. Believe me, the government cannot do this. Its clickbait sensationalism. AI capabilities? Haha. AI can’t infiltrate secure tunnels. 

  19. I don’t see how they’re allowed to not disclose what tool they’re using under a freedom of information request?

  20. At this point I’m convinced Labour is hellbent on alienating as many people as possible.

    The Tories wrecked themselves by being wildly incompetent and screwing us over to enrich themselves, but Labour seem to just want to piss us all off.

  21. Someone needs to end a Freedom of information requests to Ofcom about this.

  22. > Ofcom’s statement also suggests it’s relying on a tool with AI capabilities (as it “combines multiple data sources to train its models”), but the exact functions of the platform remain hidden.

    This is what caught my eye more… I fucking hate AI it’s a tool of human enslavement already begin used to scrape our ID without oversight by these tyrannical companies. It’s forced onto us as a tool of surveillance.

    Not only should the tools be destroyed but all the people who used them against the people. Should be held to account.

  23. Good luck I guess? Even in China people can bypass the restrictions and the government has been playing the game far longer than the UK has.

  24. So they see I’m connected to Albania.. so I don’t get adds on YouTube

  25. The online censorship act.

    They have already blocked some political subs.

    This was always about control- if it was about protecting kids- they wouldn’t make them go hungry- or at least properly investigate Andrew/ Lord Mandelson any anyone else connected to Epstein.

  26. Looks like we will all need to go dark, the online safety act was never about safety and all about control/survellience.

  27. How do you restrict a free VPN, that keeps no logs, and is based outside your jurisdiction…

    See also China … It banned vpns totally years ago… And nothing changed

  28. Ofcom absolutely toothless and useless 99% of the time unless it comes to nonsense like this.

  29. Before people get too excited:

    > Although Ofcom has been transparent about the existence of VPN monitoring, this is the first time it has provided any information outlining the methods it is using.

    Ofcom has been monitoring VPN usage for a while. It is part for their general remit in monitoring how people in the UK communicate.

    The website is being a little sneaky in putting that “following” in the title. Yes, Ofcom is monitoring VPN usage after the OSA was passed (back in 2023), but was also monitoring VPN usage before it was passed.

    The headline should be “tech website gets Ofcom to provide more detail on thing it has been doing for ages, and ties it in with a particular issue to generate clicks.”

    There is nothing in the article that actually links what Ofcom is doing with the OSA directly – they are very careful to link it only indirectly.

  30. The whole online safety act like much regulation is closing the door once the horse has bolted….

  31. I’ve got a Hetzner server in Germany for less than the cost of a VPN and it’s got Tailscale on it across all my personal devices.

    Ofcom ain’t monitoring shit and they can’t stop what I’m doing.

  32. I got one years ago because I don’t want my ISP to sell my browsing data, and I know it’s not even that effective considering how cookies are basically a digital fingerprint. I kept it because now I need one to look at Imgur, or to watch stuff that’s free on YouTube in one country rather than pay for it in this one. I’m also keeping it because I really don’t want to have to send a picture my fucking government ID to Elon Musk. I don’t trust that cunt. He is openly hostile to us, our country and democracy.

  33. Can Labour (and any party that agrees) just fuck off with this shit already!!!

  34. I hate saying this, like really do. This could make me think about voting towards farage if he runs on reversing this shit.

  35. Are they cancelling this bs… law yet or what? Such a bother to have my VPN on all the time and pretend to be some German or Swede

  36. “Nothing is off the table when it comes to protecting children” – except actually locking up the nonces in high places.

  37. I’ll vote for any party that scraps this sack of shit legislation.

  39. I’m someone who’s been scared about the Online Safety Act for the longest time, to the point where I didn’t vote for Labour in the last election because they didn’t feel like it went far enough.

    At the risk of sounding hyperbolic or paranoid, at what point do people start disappearing in the middle of the night and are never seen again because they’ve criticised the government or went onto a site that the government doesn’t like?

Comments are closed.