The UK government has abandoned plans to restrict VPN use by teenagers, but it's pressing ahead with a voluntary overnight social media curfew for 16 and 17-year olds – prompting critics to brand the policy “a dog's dinner.”

Online safety minister Kanishaka Narrayan said the decision followed widespread consultation with families, privacy campaigners, and vulnerable groups who argued that VPNs play an important role in protecting users online.

Speaking on the BBC’s Breakfast news program on Wednesday, Narayan said many parents viewed VPNs as essential for safeguarding their children’s privacy, while whistleblowers and members of minority communities said the technology could be vital for securely accessing information or seeking help.

“For those reasons, we have decided not to limit VPNs today,” he said.

However, the minister left the door open for future restrictions.

“VPNs are something we’ll continue to review. We want to make sure that young people are safe on VPNs in particular. And so we’ll work with the companies to make sure that’s the case.”

Online safety minister Kanishaka Narrayan

The announcement follows last month's news that the UK would be introducing a social media ban on under-16s, with restrictions for older teens too.

Voluntary curfew for teenagers

Instead of restricting VPNs, ministers have hatched a new plan to show they are protecting young people against online harms: a midnight social media curfew for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Under the proposals, social media platforms would automatically pause features such as personalized feeds and endless scrolling between midnight and 6 a.m. to encourage healthier sleep habits and reduce excessive screen time.

Teens would also be able to disable addictive features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling.

However, the measures would not be compulsory, and teens would be free to switch the settings off.

“A dog’s dinner”

Critics argue that the government’s new proposals risk satisfying no one.

Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott dismissed the plans as “a dog’s dinner,” arguing it made little sense to introduce a curfew that teens could simply opt out of.

Trott added that proposing to give 16-year-olds the vote (another Labour proposal on the cards) while putting them under a social media curfew made “no sense.”

VPNs already widely used by teenagers

The plans were announced at the same time as a new government report was published, looking at the way children circumvent age restrictions online.

It found that 30% of 16- and 17-year-olds have used a VPN, while 1 in 4 (25%) had used one in the previous 3 months.

Among 11- to 17-year-olds, around a quarter have used a VPN, with awareness rising to 70% among 16- and 17-year-olds.

The research suggests the decision not to ban VPNs reflects how they are used by many teenagers.

While 22% of child VPN users said they used the technology to access age-restricted websites, apps, or games, a larger proportion (30%) said their main motivation was keeping their online activity private.

Another 27% used VPNs to access sites and apps unavailable to them, while 25% used them to watch content from other countries.

The overwhelming majority of children, 81%, said the technology made them feel safer online, with many parents actively involved in setting them up or paying for them.

Security expert Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET commented that, following research, the government has realized that enforcing a VPN ban would be "a waking nightmare." He added:

“The penny has dropped for the government that restricting VPNs would have created far more problems than it solved."

Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor, ESET

"VPNs protect people’s privacy and are relied on by millions of businesses to keep their data secure. Teenagers are masterminds of a workaround, and when determined enough, they would have simply find other straightforward ways around the restrictions, whilst ordinary families could have lost a valuable privacy tool," Moore added.

“Ironically, encouraging people to stop using VPNs is the opposite of what anyone security has spent years recommending. Security and privacy designed into apps from the outset is far more effective than restricting security tools.”