UK porn access

[FumbleFingers 0]

I'm not a big porn surfer, so I don't know exactly how long ago the couple of sites I tried to visit today imposed "age verification" access restrictions. But so far as I'm concerned, there's no way I can authenticate myself online without compromising my privacy, so initially I just thought "That's the end of free porn for me, then".

BUT - I figure it's probably porn sites responding to ill-thought-out UK and/or EU  "child protection" legislation. Currently I only run Airvpn on a Raspberry Pi downloading torrents, but if I install it on my main system, presumably all I need to do then is switch to a non-European VPN server before opening a private window for my "xxx" search.

Am I on the right track here, and would anyone like to suggest the most suitable Airvpn server for this purpose?

[Tech Jedi Alex 1489]

On 8/4/2025 at 1:06 AM, FumbleFingers said:

there's no way I can authenticate myself online without compromising my privacy

Just click the "Yes, I'm 18 years old" button. 🤨
 

On 8/4/2025 at 1:06 AM, FumbleFingers said:

Am I on the right track here, and would anyone like to suggest the most suitable Airvpn server for this purpose?

All you can do is giving it a try and reporting back here. If it's EU legislation, try a different continent. US, Singapore, Japan, etc.

[cj00 1]

Just switching to another server is all you need, I'm in UK and the next best/fastest servers for me are Netherlands, so switching to that instantly bypasses all that restriction crap.

[Staff 10242]

10 hours ago, Tech Jedi Alex said:

Just click the "Yes, I'm 18 years old" button. 🤨

Not so simple in the UK, at least for sites that are willing to comply with the fringe lunatic Ofcom obligations: you need to prove your age by sending the scan of a valid ID document, by paying with a credit card proving that you are 18 or over, or by verifying your age by sending your photo (with strong compliance against fake photos, similar to what you do with banks) for facial estimation (other privacy invasive methods are allowed):
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k81lj8nvpo

Porn sites are also obliged to refuse connections from VPN, Tor and proxy. Similar legal frameworks (but theoretically less privacy invasive) are being discussed in the USA and in various EU countries.

Kind regards