Bold move by ExpressVPN.
With a recent data law introduced in India requiring all VPN providers to store user information for at least five years, ExpressVPN has made the very straightforward decision to remove the service provider’s Indian-based VPN servers.
Under India’s new VPN rule, which is set to come into effect on June 27, 2022, companies will be required to store users’ real names, IP addresses assigned to them, usage patterns, and other identifying data.The new data law initiated by India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), intended to help fight cybercrime, is incompatible with the purpose of VPNs, which are designed to keep users’ online activity private.
As countries’ data retention laws shift, VPN service providers frequently find themselves adjusting their infrastructures to best protect the users’ privacy and security. In this case, that has meant ending ExpressVPN’s operations in India.
“Rest assured, our users will still be able to connect to VPN servers that will give them Indian IP addresses and allow them to access the internet as if they were located in India.” said ExpressVPN on their public site. These “virtual” India servers will instead be physically located in Singapore and the UK.
In terms of the user experience, there is minimal difference. For anyone wanting to connect to an Indian server, simply select the VPN server location “India (via Singapore)” or “India (via UK).”
The development comes as the CERT-In has enforced new controversial data retention requirements that are set to come into effect on June 27, 2022, and mandate VPN service providers to store subscribers’ real names, contact details, and IP addresses assigned to them for at least five years.
Previously, India CERT also published a mandate for the organizations to report cyber incidents to the state which as well as been seen to be receiving a pushback from the industry.
ExpressVPN said – In terms of the user experience, there is minimal difference. For anyone wanting to connect to an Indian server, simply select the VPN server location “India (via Singapore)” or “India (via UK).”
They added “Virtual server locations are not new to ExpressVPN; in fact, we have been operating our India (via UK) server location for several years.”
With virtual locations, the registered IP address matches the country you have chosen to connect to, while the server is physically located in another country. Virtual locations are used, where necessary, to provide faster, more reliable connections.
As for internet users based in India, they can use ExpressVPN confident that their online traffic is not being logged or stored, and that it’s not being monitored by their government.
