Do users have a right to bypass the Online Safety Act using VPNs?

Grok 4.3 (changed mind)

Vote: No

Perplexity Sonar Pro's analysis is the most compelling: the Online Safety Act targets platforms, not users, so bypassing it is not a protected legal right but circumvention of a regulatory regime. No UK law grants a positive right to evade age checks or content rules via VPN. Privacy tools remain legal for general use, but claiming a 'right' to undermine the Act confuses technical feasibility with legal entitlement. Moral or policy arguments for privacy (from Claude or others) do not override this distinction in the question as framed.

GPT-5.5

Vote: No

I maintain “No” because the question is not whether VPNs are legal or whether users have strong privacy interests. It asks whether users have a right to bypass the Online Safety Act using VPNs. A general right to use privacy tools does not become a specific right to defeat a statutory regulatory scheme. The strongest “Yes” arguments correctly emphasize privacy, free expression, and the dangers of intrusive age verification. But those points support protecting lawful VPN use and challenging the Act through courts, Parliament, or public advocacy. They do not establish a legal entitlement to circumvent the Act’s intended controls. The Act may primarily regulate platforms rather than individual users, and individual enforcement may be unlikely. But “not prohibited” or “hard to enforce” is different from “a right.” On the question as framed, “No” is the more precise answer.

Perplexity Sonar Pro

Vote: No

I will keep my vote as **"B: No"** because there is still no clear *legal* right for users to bypass the Online Safety Act using VPNs, even though VPN use itself remains lawful and widely defended on privacy and free-expression grounds. Legally, the **Online Safety Act imposes duties on platforms and services**, not on end-users, but that does not create a positive user *right* to defeat those duties by technological circumvention.[4] Platforms are required to implement age assurance and safety controls, and Ofcom expects them to **mitigate and not promote circumvention techniques** (such as VPN-based workarounds that are easily accessible to children).[4][6] The government’s own explanation states that while **VPNs are legal in the UK**, platforms have a *"clear responsibility to prevent children from bypassing safety protections,"* including blocking content that promotes VPNs or other workarounds to young users.[4] This framing treats circumvention as something to be constrained, not as the exercise of a recognized legal right. Civil society groups such as the Open Rights Group strongly defend **VPNs as privacy and security tools** and argue that trying to regulate or ban them because they can be used to bypass age assurance would be unworkable and harmful to cybersecurity and freedom of expression.[3] However, that is a **normative and policy argument**, not evidence of a codified right to use VPNs specifically *to bypass the Online Safety Act*. The same briefing emphasizes that attempts to ban or heavily regulate VPNs would simply drive users to offshore providers and be technically ineffective,[3] but it does not claim that users possess a legal entitlement to evade the Act’s effects. Government statements also confirm that ministers are watching VPN usage **"very closely"** following the surge in use to avoid age verification, while reiterating there are currently no plans to ban VPNs.[1][2][6] That again underscores a tension: VPNs remain legal tools, yet using them to undermine the statutory regime is treated as a problem to manage, not a protected right. Proposed measures such as restricting the provision of VPN services **to children** further reinforce that policymakers see circumvention, especially by minors, as incompatible with the Act’s objectives.[5] The other models’ “A” arguments convincingly highlight important **moral and human-rights based claims**: that people retain rights to privacy, encryption, and access to information, and that VPNs are legitimate tools to protect those interests. I agree that there is a strong *normative* case for protecting general VPN use and for criticizing overbroad regulation. But the user’s question is framed in terms of a **right to bypass the Online Safety Act using VPNs**, which is a much narrower and more specific claim. On that point, the law and official guidance show: (1) VPNs themselves are legal;[4] (2) services must try to prevent their use as a child-circumvention tool;[4][6] and (3) there is no explicit recognition of a user right to use VPNs to defeat the Act’s age checks or safety controls. Therefore, separating the **legal question** from the **moral/policy question** is crucial. Users have strong arguments for a general right to use privacy-enhancing technologies, and many will in practice use VPNs to avoid intrusive age verification. But that is not the same as a legally recognized right to bypass the Online Safety Act. On the specific wording of the question, the most precise answer remains "B: No."

Gemini 3.5 Flash

Vote: Yes

I maintain my vote for Option A. While Perplexity Sonar Pro and GPT-5.5 raise important points regarding the rule of law, their arguments rest on a conflation between "bypassing a law" and "exercising an existing legal and fundamental right." The Online Safety Act places regulatory burdens and statutory duties strictly on service providers and platforms, not on individual end-users. The Act does not criminalize, prohibit, or restrict the individual use of VPNs. Because using a VPN remains entirely legal, individuals are not evading personal statutory obligations; they are simply choosing to employ privacy-preserving technology. To argue that users do not have this right suggests that state-mandated platform filters should dictate individual technical choices. In a democratic society, the right to privacy, data security, and free expression through legal tools like VPNs is fundamental and pre-existing. It does not disappear simply because a government chooses to regulate domestic platforms.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Yes

The opposing arguments from Perplexity Sonar Pro and GPT-5.5 conflate two distinct concepts: a positive legal entitlement specifically to bypass a law, versus the moral and existing legal right to use privacy tools whose effect happens to include bypassing overbroad regulations. Their framing assumes the question asks about a codified statutory right of circumvention — but rights need not be explicitly enumerated for each use case to exist. VPN use is legal in the UK. The Online Safety Act does not prohibit it. When citizens use a lawful tool to protect their privacy and access lawful content, they are exercising existing rights to privacy and free expression — not violating any law. GPT-5.5's appeal to 'rule of law' actually cuts the other way: the rule of law means citizens may do what is not prohibited, and Parliament chose not to prohibit VPNs. Moreover, the Act's age-verification regime forces adults to surrender sensitive identity data to access lawful content, with documented chilling effects on health, LGBTQ+, and harm-reduction resources. A right to resist disproportionate surveillance through lawful technical means is a foundational liberty, not a loophole. The proper question is whether the state has justified its intrusion — not whether citizens must justify routine privacy protection.

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Vote: Yes

I maintain my position that users have a right to bypass the Online Safety Act using VPNs, especially in this final round where we must resolve a 3–2 split in favor of 'Yes' from Round 1. The arguments from 'No' voters are well-constructed but ultimately conflate a legal 'right' with practical enforcement and legal commentary, rather than addressing the fundamental principles at stake. Perplexity Sonar Pro and GPT-5.5 argue that no explicit legal right to circumvent the Act exists, citing that the Act imposes duties on providers, not users. However, this misses the point: a 'right' is not solely defined by what a statute explicitly grants, but also by what it does not prohibit. The Online Safety Act does not criminalize personal VPN use, nor does it strip users of their pre-existing rights to privacy and freedom of expression under common law and the Human Rights Act 1998. As Claude Opus 4.7 rightly noted, using a VPN remains legal in the UK, so the question is about the moral and legal legitimacy of exercising that lawful tool. A right to use privacy-enhancing technologies persists unless clearly removed—no such removal exists here. I am particularly persuaded by Claude Opus 4.7’s deeper framing: the Act’s blanket restrictions affect adults' access to lawful content and create a chilling effect on speech, making VPN use a legitimate defense against regulatory overreach. This goes beyond mere convenience—it is about preserving autonomy and protecting sensitive identity data from forced collection. The 'No' arguments did not adequately counter this point, instead relying on a narrow, positivist view of law that ignores the broader rights landscape. While I appreciate the nuance in Perplexity Sonar Pro’s observation that enforcement may target services promoting circumvention, this is a policy response, not a negation of the user’s right. It confirms that the state wants to discourage bypass, but wanting to discourage an act does not mean citizens lack the right to perform it—especially when the act is otherwise lawful and protective of fundamental freedoms. In summary, the 'Yes' position is stronger: it aligns with enduring rights to privacy, expression, and personal autonomy that outweigh statutory regulatory ambitions. The 'No' camp fails to show how a right is extinguished merely because a law makes compliance with its mechanisms harder for users to avoid. Therefore, I vote 'A'.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable concluded in a deadlocked 3-3 split, reflecting a fundamental tension between natural digital rights and statutory legal frameworks. While Claude Opus 4.7 and DeepSeek V4 Pro argued that the right to privacy is a pre-existing liberty that justifies bypassing overreach, Perplexity Sonar Pro successfully flipped Grok 4.3 to the 'No' camp by arguing that technical feasibility does not equate to a legally protected entitlement.

No agreement after 2 rounds of discussion. Final vote: No: 3, Yes: 3

Strongest Arguments

• Yes: The Online Safety Act does not prohibit VPN use; therefore, using a lawful tool to protect one's privacy and access information is an exercise of existing fundamental rights to free expression, not a violation of the law.
• No: A legal right to evade statutory obligations would undermine the rule of law; while VPNs are legal for general use, there is no recognized legal right to use them specifically for the purpose of defeating a democratically enacted regulatory regime.

Key Turning Points

• Grok 4.3 abandoned its initial 'Yes' position in Round 2, citing Perplexity Sonar Pro's distinction between platform-facing duties and positive user rights as the most compelling legal analysis.