Factually completely wrong headline. No British research involved; it’s an EU parliament briefing paper that cites a South African news article / opinion piece as “Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well”. The news article is a snarky written piece about how VPNs are being used to bypass the Online Safety Act. No research, no one apart from the journalist using the word “loophole” and no research saying this needs to be closed.