⚡️🚨🇺🇸 ALERT - Utah is about to become the first US state to legally target VPN use as part of online age verification. The law goes into effect Wednesday, May 6, 2026.
🔴 If you are physically located in Utah, you count as a Utah user, regardless of whether you use a VPN, proxy, or any other tool to disguise your location. Websites are now legally responsible for age-verifying you anyway.
🔴 Sites that handle "material harmful to minors" are banned from sharing instructions on how to use a VPN, or from offering any means to bypass geofencing.
The EFF calls this a "liability trap." Websites cannot reliably tell where a VPN user actually is, so the safest legal move is either to block every known VPN IP outright, or to force ID-based age verification on every visitor worldwide. Either path subjects millions of users to invasive identity checks, regardless of where they actually live.
The Cato Institute put it bluntly. When a policy can be defeated by a privacy tool millions of people legitimately use, the policy is the problem.
The collateral damage is, as always, the people who actually need VPNs:
🔴 Journalists protecting sources
🔴 Domestic abuse survivors hiding from stalkers
🔴 Activists in hostile environments
🔴 Remote workers tunneling into corporate networks
🔴 Travelers banking from abroad
🔴 Anyone who simply does not want their ISP, employer, or data brokers reading their traffic
This is not staying in Utah. The UK's Children's Commissioner has called VPNs a "loophole that needs closing." France's Minister Delegate for AI and Digital Affairs has named VPNs as "the next topic on my list."
The EU is rolling out age verification across all 27 member states by end of 2026, with EVP Henna Virkkunen openly admitting they have no plan for VPN bypass yet.
Utah is leading by example.
EFF: "Attacks on VPNs are, at their core, attacks on the tools that enable digital privacy."
