Wire · founder news, decoded · regulatory
Over half of children experience 'harmful' content online
UK government research shows over half of children have accessed harmful content online despite the Online Safety Act's July 2025 age verification requirements; nearly two in five children surveyed have successfully circumvented age checks, primarily through false identity claims and VPNs.
This Wire brief sits within Fusion42's coverage of Cybersecurity. Wire is Fusion42's founder-focused intelligence feed: each story is connected to the funds and startups it names — every one with a live profile on Raise or Scout — so founders can follow the capital and the momentum behind the headline rather than just the headline itself. Wire analysis is one of the live surfaces Arthur, Fusion42's AI co-founder, reasons over.
The Wire takeaway
If you build age verification or content filtering, the UK's real-world data just proved your baseline assumption wrong: no technical measure stops determined users, and VPN adoption is your actual problem, not tick boxes. Ofcom is escalating enforcement, but fines won't fix the gap—you're selling into a regulation that's already failing its own test.
Read the full story at holyrood.com →
Topics: Cybersecurity · age-verification · online-safety-act · regulatory-enforcement · child-protection · vpn-circumvention