Skip to main content

ExpressVPN Servers Booted Out Of India Due To New Indian VPN Rules: Details

Following the new Indian cybersecurity norms from Govt. of India’s CERT-In department, the leading global VPN (Virtual Private Network) provider ExpressVPN is shutting down its servers operating in the country. It calls out the new VPN regulations by our government to be counter-intuitive to the core reasoning behind using a VPN solution. Let’s understand what the new VPN policies of the center are and how it impacts the VPN business and the end-user.

What are the new VPN rules of India?

ExpressVPN

On April 28, 2022, CERT-In issued a press release titled, “Directions relating to information security practices, procedure, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents for Safe & Trusted Internet”.

CERT-In for the uninitiated, stands for Computer Emergency Response Team that oversees protection of cybersecurity. Coming the the issue at hand, it warns of certain gaps in the cybersecurity rules that are apparently hindering incident analysis. 

It notes its new rules try to address “the directions cover aspects relating to synchronization of ICT system clocks; mandatory reporting of cyber incidents to CERT-In; maintenance of logs of ICT systems; subscriber/customer registrations details by Data centers, Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers, VPN Service providers, Cloud service providers; KYC norms and practices by virtual asset service providers, virtual asset exchange providers, and custodian wallet providers. These directions shall enhance the overall cyber security posture and ensure safe & trusted Internet in the country”.

Simply put, Government wants VPN companies with domestic servers must keep records of user data like names, mobile numbers, email IDs, IP addresses, etc for at least 5 years. This is said to be for tackling cybercrime that are relying on VPNs.

Why is ExpressVPN discontinuing its Indian servers?

ExpressVPN

There is the aforementioned CERT-In rule. But also it is as Minister of State for Electronics and Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrashekhar had cautioned the VPN brands. He had said,"“If you’re a VPN that wants to hide and be anonymous about those who use VPNs and you don’t want to go by these rules, then if you want to pull out (from the country), frankly, that is the only opportunity you will have. You will have to pull out.”

So in reaction to this ExpressVPN remarked, “The law is also overreaching and so broad as to open up the window for potential abuse. We believe the damage done by potential misuse of this kind of law far outweighs any benefit that lawmakers claim would come from it”.

The company thinks this would “limit the Internet freedom” and blames the new Indian cyber laws to be “incompatible with the purpose of VPNs, which are designed to keep users’ online activity private”.

How do the Indian Cyber rules and ExpressVPN quitting its servers affect users?

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN’s Indian subscribers can still use the VPN through “virtual” India servers set in the UK and Singapore.

Assuring its Indian users, ExpressVPN says, “We will never collect logs of user activity, including no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries. We also never store connection logs, meaning no logs of IP addresses, outgoing VPN IP addresses, connection timestamps, or session durations”.

As for other news, reviews, feature stories, buying guides, and everything else tech-related, keep reading Digit.in.



from Internet News https://ift.tt/3qYjzB4
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This week in Android: It’s weird phone week

We got to play with a lot of cool tech at CES 2019 , but little was cooler than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 . Qualcomm had a reference device  sporting the new SoC and we were able to put it through its paces , including our very own Speed Test G . The results are impressive. In other big news this week, we found out  Motorola is planning on bringing back the Razr phone , made famous in the mid 2000s. We don’t know a lot about the phone itself, but we can make some guesses  based on a patent  from August of last year. Plus, we look ahead at the future of LG and OnePlus , including a new peculiar accessory for LG . Also, we have good news and bad news about Huawei’s security. Here are your top stories for the week 4:20 – Snapdragon 855 performance and benchmarking: Speed Test G, AnTuTu & Geekbench At CES, Gary Sims previewed the  Snapdragon 855 processor in reference hardware. He had some fun with it. 21:45 – You’ll flip for the foldable Motorol...
Post a Comment
Read more

My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right. Instagram See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues. Want to see more fashion, sunsets, selfies, food porn, pets, or Boomerangs? Instagram’s machine vision technology and metadata would gather them from people you follow and give you a dose. You shouldn’t have to work through search, hashtags, or the Explore page, nor permanently change your feed by following new accounts. Pinterest briefly had this feature (and should bring it back) but it’d work better on Insta. Web DMs  – Instagram’s messaging feature has become the defacto place for sharing memes and trash talk about peopl...
Post a Comment
Read more

First ever drone-delivered kidney is no worse for wear

Drone delivery really only seems practical for two things: take-out and organ transplants. Both are relatively light and also extremely time sensitive. Well, experiments in flying a kidney around Baltimore in a refrigerated box have yielded positive results — which also seems promising for getting your pad thai to you in good kit. The test flights were conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland there, led by surgeon Joseph Scalea. He has been frustrated in the past with the inflexibility of air delivery systems, and felt that drones represent an obvious solution to the last-mile problem. Scalea and his colleagues modified a DJI M600 drone to carry a refrigerated box payload, and also designed a wireless biosensor for monitoring the organ while in flight. After months of waiting, their study was assigned a kidney that was healthy enough for testing but not good enough for transplant. Once it landed in Baltimore, the team loaded it into the container and had it travel 14 ...
1 comment
Read more