VPN Firms Are Removing Servers in India To Avoid Customers Data Sharing Rule

NordVPN, one of the most popular VPN providers, is the latest to confirm that it will be removing its servers in India ahead of the nation enacting new strict guidelines later this month. From a report: The Lithuania-based firm, which counts General Catalyst and Novator among its backers and is valued at $1.6 billion, said on Tuesday that it doesn't maintain any logs of its customers' data, strings of information that New Delhi will soon require VPN providers to share. 'Moreover, we are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers. Therefore, we are no longer able to keep servers in India,' a company spokesperson said.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, the body appointed by the government to protect India's information infrastructure, unveiled cybersecurity guidelines in late April that will require 'virtual private server (VPS) providers, cloud service providers, VPN service providers, virtual asset service providers, virtual asset exchange providers, custodian wallet providers and government organisations' to store customers' names, email addresses, IP addresses, know-your-customer records and financial transactions for a period of five years. The new rules go into effect June 27. NordVPN's decision follows similar directions taken by ExpressVPN and SurfShark, both of which have removed servers in the country. It's unclear how popular VPN services are in India, but on their sites the aforementioned firms say they are used by millions of users worldwide.

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