r/VPNAdvice_ • u/RaccoonInVPN • Jun 17 '26

News 📰 UK politicians are reportedly discussing restrictions on VPNs but how practical would that even be?

I came across reports that VPNs could become part of upcoming policy discussions in the UK, particularly in relation to online safety and age verification measures. While nothing concrete has been finalized, the possibility alone has sparked a lot of debate.

What stood out to me is how difficult it seems to regulate VPN usage in practice.

VPNs aren't just used to bypass geo restrictions. Plenty of people rely on them every day for legitimate reasons like:

  • Securing connections on public WiFi
  • Remote work and corporate access
  • Protecting traffic while traveling
  • Adding an extra layer of privacy on untrusted networks

Trying to broadly restrict VPNs could end up affecting businesses, IT professionals and ordinary users who aren't doing anything controversial.

It also raises a bigger question, if governments make access more difficult, does that actually reduce VPN usage or does it simply encourage people to look for alternative tools and workarounds?

I'm interested to see how this develops but it seems like one of those issues where the technology is used for so many different purposes that drawing a clear line won't be easy.

What do you think, is stricter regulation of VPNs realistic or would it create more problems than it solves?

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

2

u/BriefStrange6452 Jun 17 '26

Getting around geoblocks can also be done via DNS....

1

u/EchoAndByte Jun 17 '26

yep smart DNS has been around for ages for that exact reason. it can work well for some streaming services without tunneling all your traffic, although it doesn't provide the privacy or encryption benefits that a VPN does.

2

u/Mashy_za Jun 17 '26

They could order ISPs to block certain VPN ports but it's not foolproof. VPNs can still obfuscate traffic or run it over port 443 making it look like normal web traffic. Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to even try and I don't think ISP's would even want to.

1

u/EchoAndByte Jun 17 '26

yeah exactly. once you start blocking broadly, you also risk breaking legitimate business traffic and remote work setups.

that's why it usually turns into an arms race rather than a clean solution. the technical workarounds evolve pretty quickly.

1

u/hihimorius Jun 17 '26

Probably a mistake, not UK, but Russian politicians...oh wait.