Henna Virkkunen’s speech caused a storm: “Now it has been misunderstood”

Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Technology Henna Virkkunen VPN comments caused a bit of a stir in May.

In Kauppalehti’s Talousamau, Virkkunen said that it was a misunderstanding.

Virkkunen had been presenting the EU’s new age verification application, which aims to protect children from harmful online content. Such monitoring can be circumvented with a virtual private network application, i.e. a VPN connection.

Virkkunen said at the event that the next step is to think about how to prevent evasion. The comment had attracted attention on social media across Europe.

“Of course, I mean that it is important when developing such an age certificate that it is as strong and reliable as possible, that it can also be trusted,” said Virkkunen.

“But somewhere there has now been a misunderstanding that VPNs are somehow being banned or rejected. Of course, that’s not the case.”

According to him, the discussion about VPN in itself is a different issue.

“It is above all about this, that when children use different services online, it could be reliably identified, and it would not be easy for children to circumvent it.”

According to Virkkunen, the commission continues to look for a solution to how minors can be prevented from accessing inappropriate content.

“Of course, our goal is to find solutions so that it is not easy to circumvent, so that minors do not get access to services that are not intended for them.”

Watch the entire interview in the attached video link.