Hey John,

We called it a long time ago—as soon as governments saw how useless their “age verification” laws actually were for keeping anyone safer online, they’d double down with the ban hammer. Now they aren’t only trying to censor and surveil literally everyone and everything online with these wrongheaded laws, they’re starting to talk about banning¹ or restricting² the tools we need to stay safe and work online. Tell government leaders—do not ban VPNs!

Last month, as the UK rolled out their “Age Verification” law that forced every Brit online to provide identity documents like a passport or drivers license in order to use basically the whole Internet. Rightly, Brits said “screw that” and VPN installations surged.³ Instead of taking stock of the fact that they passed a bad law that’s not going to make kids safer online because they (and the whole Internet!) don’t want to be censored and surveilled, lawmakers over there are doubling down and investigating VPNs. We’ve been around long enough to know where that “investigation” is headed.

Virtual Private Networks, aka VPNs, allow a person to access the Internet through a server elsewhere in the world. They’re a common tool of basic security and privacy not only for everyday people, but also for major corporations throughout the world. This can be a lifeline for people to access the web safely, especially in places with extreme state-sanctioned suppression and censorship of online content. If we can’t use VPNs anymore, we all lose out when it comes to our online safety.

Sounds like the total opposite of what “age verification” lawmakers were trying to accomplish in the first place, huh? That’s why they should actually start listening to human rights experts when it comes to censorship and surveillance laws. So today, let’s send one loud and clear message on an essential piece of Internet infrastructure: tell lawmakers to stand up and defend VPNs.

TAKE ACTION

Sharing in a collective eyeroll over this one,

Lia & the whole team at Fight for the Future

Footnotes

1. GBNews.com: https://www.gbnews.com/politics/labour-ban-vpn-online-safety-act

2. TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/could-vpns-be-banned-uk-government-to-look-very-closely-into-their-usage-amid-mass-usage-since-the-age-verification-row

3. Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/vpn-use-spike-age-verification-laws-uk/