ExpressVPN announce that it has remove its virtual private network (VPN) servers in India in response to the recent directions given by the government to make it mandatory for VPN service providers to keep user data for at least five years and share records with authorities when require.
The British Virgin Islands-base company said that the directions, which were given by India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and will come into force starting 27th June 2022, were “incompatible with the purpose of VPNs” and “overreaching”.
ExpressVPN will no longer have its Indian-base VPN servers.
Users will still be able to connect to VPN servers that will give them Indian IP addresses and connect to the Internet as if they were locate in India, the company said in a blog post.
The “virtual” India VPN servers will be physically locate not in the country and will instead be available in Singapore and the UK, as per company.
ExpressVPN Said :
“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,”.
The company said that the order by the government that was release in late April was “overreaching and so broad as to open up the window for potential abuse.”
CERT-In had said that it was aim to help limit cybercrime and cybersecurity incidents in the country.
ExpressVPN said that the law is “incompatible with the purpose of VPNs, which are designed to keep users’ online activity private.”
ExpressVPN Said :
“We believe the damage done by potential misuse of this kind of law far outweighs any benefit that lawmakers claim would come from it,”.
ExpressVPN also assure that it would never collect logs of user activity, including browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries.
ExpressVPN state that it never stored connection logs, including the logs of IP addresses, outgoing VPN IP addresses, connection timestamps, or session durations.
All this is something that the government wanted VPN service providers to store for at least five years.
The directive also order service providers to “mandatorily enable logs” of their systems and maintain them securely for a rolling period of 180 days.
ExpressVPN said that in addition to its policy that is not allow to accept logging, its VPN servers are specifically design to be unable to log, including by running in RAM.
ExpressVPN Said :
“Data centres are unlikely to be able to accommodate this policy and our server architecture under this new regulation, and thus we will move forward without physical servers in India,”.
ExpressVPN said that the user experience will have a minimal difference over what its users would get through physical servers.
They will be require to select the VPN server location ‘India (via Singapore)’ or ‘India (via UK)’ to connect to an Indian server.
ExpressVPN already has virtual server locations.
The ExpressVPN said that it had operating its ‘India (via UK)’ server location for many years.
These virtual locations use a register IP address that matches the country users have chosen to connect to, while the server is physically locate in another country.
ExpressVPN said that virtual locations were use to provide faster, more reliable connections, over traditional Internet connections.
With ExpressVPN, NordVPN parent Nord Security, Surfshark, and ProtonVPN had raise concerns over the Indian government’s directive.
Nord Security also hint that it might remove its servers from India if no other options were left.
10 Points to Explain ExpressVPN Development
- “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 our Indian-based VPN servers,” the British Virgin Islands-headquartered company said in a blog post.
- ExpressVPN will offer “virtual” India servers to its users to connect as a result of the update.
- The virtual servers will use Indian IP addresses to provide Internet access as if they were located in India, the company said. That means users outside India will continue to be able to access India-specific content using the VPN service.
- The virtual VPN servers will not be locate in India and will be base in Singapore and the UK. You will be able to access the virtual India servers by selecting the VPN server location ‘India (via Singapore)’ or ‘India (via UK)’.
- ExpressVPN has operating its ‘India (via UK)’ server location for many years. The ExpressVPN also said that virtual locations are used to provide “faster, more reliable connections” to users.
- Users are practically not likely to get any noticeable difference in the experience.
- ExpressVPN said it would never collect logs of user activity and store connection logs of its users.
- The government order VPN service providers to keep user logs for at least five years and share them with authorities when required.
- It also directed service providers to “mandatorily enable logs” of their systems and maintain them securely for a rolling period of 180 days.
- ExpressVPN and other VPN companies express concerns over the government order.
- NordVPN parent Nord Security also hint to remove its servers from India if no other options are given.
