Since Ofcom introduced mandatory age verification for adult sites this summer under the Online Safety Act, UK-based traffic to porn websites has plummeted.

This is according to the media and communications regulator’s annual national review of online trends, which revealed that traffic to some of the most popular porn sites dropped sharply when mandatory age checks came into effect on 25 July.

These age checks required a number of different measures to ensure under-18s could not access the websites, from checking IDs to providing credit card information.

The most visited adult content website in the UK, Pornhub, saw a 1.5 million drop year-on-year in August, with 9.8 million viewers compared to August 2024’s 11.3 million.

According to Ofcom, the first month alone saw Pornhub’s visits drop by 31%, with xHamaster, another site, dropping by 28% and xvideos falling by 24% between July and August.

Seemingly in tandem, Ofcom noted the rise of VPN (virtual private network) usage after the age check requirements came into place. UK daily use of VPNs just about doubled from 65,000 users in July, reaching over 1.4 million by the middle of August this year. Usage steadily declined, however, reaching 900,000 in November.

VPNs allow users to access sites as if they are in a different geographic location, which can allow them to log into regionally-restricted accounts or access sites that would otherwise be blocked in their country. The use of a VPN would allow users to bypass the age verification requirements needed in the UK if they used a VPN routed in a different country without such mandates.

While Ofcom’s annual review of internet usage does not delineate VPN usage by age, critics of the Online Safety Act’s age check mandates have said that children would be easily able to sidestep the new mandate by using a VPN.

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Research from Childnet showed that around one in four (24%) of young people have begun to use a VPN in just the past three months, up from around a fifth from a year ago (21%).

Young people cited various reasons for their use of VPNs, from improved privacy and security, as well as bypassing parental controls and seeing content they knew they should not be exposed to.

Childnet’s research however did not see a marked increase in children using VPNs after the age checks came into effect.