--- title: Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online... description: One year after the UK Online Safety Act's child safety duties took effect on 25 July 2025, cybersecurity experts assess the unintended consequences. Key... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/examining-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-online-safety-act-pmykwoevr twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online Safety Act | daily.dev og:description: One year after the UK Online Safety Act's child safety duties took effect on 25 July 2025, cybersecurity experts assess the unintended consequences. Key... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/examining-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-online-safety-act-pmykwoevr og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/PMykWoEvR.png og:image:alt: Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online Safety Act og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online Safety Act **[IT Security Guru](https://daily.dev/sources/itsecurityguru)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary One year after the UK Online Safety Act's child safety duties took effect on 25 July 2025, cybersecurity experts assess the unintended consequences. Key findings include a spike in VPN usage — often toward insecure free providers — as users circumvent age verification, with security risks including malware and data harvesting. Ofcom's own data shows the proportion of children encountering harmful content has not substantially improved, enforcement has been limited (only £55,000 collected in fines despite 30 investigations), and a notable skirmish with 4chan highlighted jurisdictional weaknesses. Experts also flag growing security risks around the centralisation of sensitive identity data in specialist age-verification providers, the security of the verification software itself, and the underexamined human risk of staff routinely handling minors' government IDs and biometric data. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [UK's Online Safety Act has made 'absolutely no difference,' kids say](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-s-online-safety-act-has-made-absolutely-no-difference-kids-say-ukq11d2ve) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#data-privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/data-privacy), [#vpn](https://daily.dev/tags/vpn), [#identity-verification](https://daily.dev/tags/identity-verification) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/examining-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-online-safety-act-pmykwoevr) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Examining the Unintended Consequences of the Online Safety Act","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/examining-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-online-safety-act-pmykwoevr","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/examining-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-online-safety-act-pmykwoevr"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T13:55:38.450Z","dateModified":"2026-07-24T22:34:22.518Z","description":"One year after the UK Online Safety Act's child safety duties took effect on 25 July 2025, cybersecurity experts assess the unintended consequences. 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