TL;DRNew Zealand’s government has ruled out banning or restricting VPNs as part of its planned under-16 social media ban, after PM Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford moved to quell a fierce privacy backlash. The idea surfaced via a report that Stanford had floated VPN restrictions; ministers now say it was never on the table, though coalition partner NZ First warned an early proposal could have led to VPN limits and digital IDs. The episode mirrors a global tension between age-verification laws and encryption tools.
The New Zealand government has ruled out restricting or banning VPNs as part of its planned under-16 social media ban. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford both moved to kill the idea after a rapid privacy backlash, TechRadar reports.
“I can reject that outright. There’s no plan to ban VPNs at all,” Luxon told reporters.
Stanford’s office followed up to say the government is “not looking at restricting or banning VPNs”.
The row began with a report in The Post that Stanford had floated VPN restrictions as part of the ban. Because a VPN can mask a user’s location and slip past network blocks, some officials reportedly saw it as a threat to enforcing age checks.
