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Report

What do young people really know about Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)?

A report measuring the awareness of VPN's among 11 to 17 year olds to better understand whether young people may be using these tools to access gambling-related content.

Published
20 August 2026

Last updated
20 August 2026 - Changes

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  1. Contents
  2. Introduction

Introduction

As new age assurance measures have begun to take effect under the Online Safety Act (2023) (opens in new tab), there are early indications that some young people are turning to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass restrictions. While gambling is not a designated priority area under the Act, we need to better understand whether children and young people may be using these tools to access gambling-related content they would otherwise be restricted from seeing.

To explore this further we asked Yonder to measure awareness of VPNs among 11 to 17 year olds on their Children’s Omnibus survey.

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