Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they expect the duties on user-to-user services created by the Online Safety Bill to apply when services are accessed via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and the service may not be able to know if the user is located in the UK.

The Online Safety Bill will apply to companies which allow users to post content online or to interact with each other, as well as to search services.

The Online Safety Bill will ensure that users in the UK are protected. It will apply to any relevant service which is ‘linked to the UK’, no matter where it is based. A service is linked to the UK if it has a significant number of UK users, UK users form a target market, or if it poses a material risk of significant harm to UK individuals.

The onus will be on companies to ensure that their systems are sufficiently effective. Ofcom will be able to take robust enforcement action against companies which fail to fulfil their duties.