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To repeal or not repeal: UK Parliament discusses the Online Safety Act

Date:
Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:55:41 +0000

Description:
The debate comes as a petition to repeal the bill got 500K signatures,
focusing on controversial provisions around age verification and encrypted
apps.

FULL STORY

After officially becoming law in October 2023, the Online Safety Act was back
in the UK Parliament yesterday after a petition calling for its repeal gained
over half a million signatures. 

The petition argued that the law is far broader and restrictive than is
necessary in a free society. However, most MPs suggested that rather than
being repealed, the legislation should actually be strengthened. 

Brits have long been concerned about the Online Safety Acts potential to
encourage online censorship, and have repeatedly highlighted the negative
impact mandatory age checks could have on privacy and security. 

Despite not leading to immediate changes, the debate offered an opportunity
for MPs to challenge the government on the law's implementation. Here are the
main takeaways.

What MPs are saying on age verification

Most of the MPs taking part in yesterday's discussion argued that the OSA is 
a crucial piece of legislation to protect children online. However, some MPs
did raise a few challenges around its implementation. 

Specifically, lawmakers discussed concerns around freedom of speech and
referenced examples of political discourse being unnecessarily age-gated. 

"What is or is not age-restricted needs to be far clearer, more consistent,
and more proportionate," said Independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, Iqbal
Mohamed. 

Some MPs also echoed experts' and citizens' concerns about age verification's
negative impact on privacy, with Victoria Collins, a Liberal Democrat MP,
arguing that "age assurance systems also pose a problem to data protection 
and privacy." 

But MPs seemed to be in agreement that none of these challenges warranted a
real discussion about the law's future. Instead, the focus remained on
refining how the law is implemented. 

A particular area of focus was the use of VPN apps. 

While many people have turned en masse to the best VPN apps to protect their
privacy,  lawmakers expressed concern that children could use these apps to
evade checks. Consequently, the UK Lords proposed a ban on VPNs for children
last week. 

From the debate, it's clear that lawmakers will continue to monitor VPN usage
and have not ruled out introducing stricter rules against VPN providers in 
the coming year.

Encryption -- not a main concern for MPs

Besides age verification, digital rights advocates and technologists are aslo
concerned about other controversial provisions that are yet to be fully
implemented and could pose a risk to end-to-end encryption . 

After all, the UK regulator Ofcom has already shared plans to double down on
file monitoring in 2026 , expanding detection requirements of illegal
materials to more online services, no matter if these are encrypted. 

Before the debate, Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO at the Index of Censorship, also
told TechRadar to be especially worried about the prospect that end-to-end
encryption could be broken by future implementation of the law. 

"These apps are a lifeline. Even setting aside the high price that dissidents
would pay if they lost that privacy. The average person should have it as a
natural right," said Steinfeld. "I then think it's really good that we're
having this debate right now." 

Yesterday's debate, however, only touched briefly on this point. This shows
that MPs do not share the same concerns as experts, with Labour MP for Milton
Keynes Central, Emily Darlington, referring to "easy technological fixes" to
avoid breaching encryption protection already existing. Tools that, however,
experts have repeatedly said they still break encryption when they were
proposed in the EU.

What's next? 

The OSA debate wasn't a turning point. No, lawmakers have no intention to
scrap the Online Safety Act, either  not even its most controversial
provisions. 

The discussion gives us an interesting insight, nevertheless, into what MPs
are most worried about right now. 

The harm of harmful algorithms and generative AI is certainly what most MPs
are pushing to be dealt with next. Yet, as many MPs recognized, there are
still many issues with the current implementation as it is. It's then a good
sign that this discussion is ongoing. 

That said, to get real change, words may not be enough. Commenting on this
point, Director of Government Affairs and Advocacy at the Internet Society,
Callum Voge, told TechRadar: "This weeks debate will not be enough to reopen
the controversial provisions alone. There will need to be continued public
pressure on these issues to ensure that the concerns are really heard and
addressed." 

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. 
For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms
and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and
strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone
using a VPN service to break the law or conduct illegal activities. Consuming
pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future
Publishing. 

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/to-repeal-or-not-repeal-uk-
parliament-discusses-the-online-safety-act

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