Ask HN: Does the UK's new anti-VPN law prevent under-18s from working in tech? Question as stated. I had a brief scan of the new law and it seems as though a 17-year-old in a tech role would be unable to access a corporate network if it was protected by a VPN. The law doesn't seem to offer a carve-out or protection to prevent this situation. Given that children can generally work from 13, which is around the time that they'll be able to use VPNs, this seems like an interesting situation. |
That's not what the law states. The actual law states ...by prohibiting the provision to children in the United Kingdom of VPN services which can facilitate evasion of OSA age-gating processes so a corporate network protected by a VPN doesn't fall foul of the regulation.
>Given that children can generally work from 13
Not in the UK they can't. Children can work part-time at 14 however they can only start full-time work once they’ve turned 16.
[Regulations under subsection (1)] must apply the child VPN prohibition to the provider of any relevant VPN service which is, or is likely to be—
(i) offered or marketed to persons in the United Kingdom; (ii) provided to a significant number of persons;
That being said, my non-expert reading of the amendment [1] is that it only applies to "consumers", which someone using a VPN for business purposes is not:
> “consumer” means a person acting otherwise than in the course of a business;
> “relevant VPN service” means a service of providing, in the course of a business, to a consumer, a virtual private network for accessing the internet;
[1] https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3909/stages/20215/amendmen...
Just a hot take, but perhaps the focus shouldn't be "how can we ensure that nigh-preteens can connect to the office network".
That aside, legislating on whether VPN access is legal or not is still a ridiculous and dangerous idea.