UK Survey Shows Kids Bypassing Age Checks Under Online Safety Act

Overview

• In May 2026, an Internet Matters survey of 1,270 UK children aged 9–16 and their parents found 32% of children had bypassed age checks and 26% of parents had allowed it.
• Age prompts are now common, with 53% of children asked to verify their age recently, most often on TikTok, YouTube/Google and Roblox.
• Children reported simple workarounds including fake birthdates, borrowed logins, other people’s devices or IDs, VPNs and face‑spoofing tricks.
• Despite more visible safety features since the law took effect in July 2025, 49% of children said they encountered harm in the past month, including violent, hateful, body‑image, data‑soliciting and sexual content.
• A coalition including Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Tor Project warned that wider mandatory checks would erode privacy, risk ID data breaches and turn the web into patchwork age‑gated zones as the government consults on stricter rules.