Naturally, the police could not find anything useful, as the provider does not keep connections or activity logs that could be tied to users.įurthermore, ExpressVPN introduced its TrustedServer technology in 2019, eliminating the use of hard drives on its network. In 2017, Turkish authorities seized ExpressVPN servers as part of investigations into Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov's assassination. On the extreme end of the spectrum are cases where governments tried to obtain user data by confiscating the VPN provider's servers. As you can see, they had never provided any user information, even when the data requests were valid. Meanwhile, IVPN updates its transparency report page annually. PIA is another example of a provider with (semi-annual) transparency reports ( Q1 2022 found here). What little information they do gather (such as hardware details) is transformed into an MD5 hash that cannot be traced back to their users.įurther Read: What Device Information Do VPNs Collect? (Here’s What The Top Providers Log) As expected, CyberGhost VPN can't provide any such details as they do not retain any user logs. They provide quarterly transparency reports showcasing DMCA complaints, malicious activity flags, as well as police requests for user data. While they also deal with the authorities on a regular basis, CyberGhost VPN takes a slightly different approach. Suffice to say, PIA couldn't provide any user information to the authorities for a simple reason: they don't store it in the first place. On the other side of the barricade lie providers such as Private Internet Access (PIA), who have had their data logging tested in court more than once. Instead, it's the fact that said VPN providers lied about their no-logging policy. While all of them definitely deserved to get caught, that isn't the issue here. In those cases, they shared data needed to catch a child predator, a stalker, and a culprit making bomb threats. We've previously covered several cases where no-logs VPNs shared data with governments - PureVPN, IPVanish, and EarthVPN specifically. What are some better ways to determine if a VPN is lying about its no-logs policy? 3 methods are reliable to some extent. Learn: Are Free VPNs Safe? – The Dark Side of Data Abuse By Free VPN Providers Free providers need to take care of operational costs somehow, which usually involves selling user data to advertising networks. It's important to note that these were all free VPNs, which you should avoid if you care about privacy at all. All 7 providers claimed they don't log user data. Over 20 million users had their names, emails, passwords, addresses, IPs, browsing history, and other sensitive details exposed online. Such was the case when 7 Hong Kong-based VPNs leaked 1.2 TB of data online. For instance, some VPN providers may flat out lie about their no logs claims. While you should definitely read the VPN terms of service before signing up with any provider, that's not always enough. Is It Enough to Read the VPN's Privacy Policy? So what can you do to determine how private a VPN actually is? Read on to find out. MUST-READ: Here’s What VPN Services Won’t Tell You About Their Connection & Usage Logs Others may track data usage to impose data caps or OS and app versions to provide crucial security updates. For example, VPNs with a device limit need to track how many devices are linked to your account. And yes, that will involve some form of logging, no matter how minimal. In the end, that still tells us a "biased, limited, and perishable story," as F5 director Raymond Pompon puts it.Īt the end of the day, even the best zero logs VPNs need some way to keep their service up and running. Sure, that builds trust in the provider, as they don't willingly provide access to user data to an outside party. We're practically stuck in a loop of "who watches the watchmen?" (or "who audits the auditors" in this case.) While they're a decent way to gauge the quality of a VPN provider, audits are most often performed on a replica of the VPN's infrastructure. However, that doesn't solve the issue of needing to trust the claims of yet another third party. By far, the most common way you'll see VPNs described is "no logs" or "zero logs." It sounds appealing on a marketing page, but how can the average user be sure that their provider truly keeps no logs? Security experts will claim that's what independent audits are for, and for the most part, that's true.
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