As already stated in our previous News about VPNs to cease servers in India, new Indian data regulation laws force VPN providers to collect data about their users and network traffic and keep the logs for 180 days. What is more, VPNs should store excessive data about customers for five years.
In consequence of the new Indian data regulation laws, VPNs like Surfshark that operate under a strict “no logs” policy must consider if they accept the new requirement that goes against the company’s core ethos. As you might know, a VPN is an online privacy tool, and Surfshark is supposed to make it as easy for ordinary users as possible. However, right now Indian Government has put a question mark on the privacy of their citizens, and Surfshark can’t accept it because it would compromise the main ethical values and technical configuration of the whole VPN network.
What will happen to Surfshark after the India VPN servers shut down?
Like most companies, Surfshark will shut down physical servers and continue offering its services through virtual servers installed on physically located machines in Singapore and London. Until then, Surfshar users will be able to use servers in India as usual. After the new regulations effective date, Surfshark users will be able to find the new virtual VPN servers in a regular list of servers.
Some might ask: what is the difference. Of course, the main difference is the physical location, but from the functional point of view, the offered services will be identical. Therefore, you will get the same functionality, which means the Indian IP address.
There will be no difference for users from India connecting to VPN servers abroad. So, if you are from India, you will be able to connect to whichever server outside the country you like.
Meanwhile, Surfshark announced to continue closely monitoring the Government’s attempts to limit internet freedom. Moreover, they will encourage discussions intended to persuade the Government to hear the arguments of the tech industry.
Cybersecurity in India is endangered.
The Government’s attempts to control and violate privacy rights will not keep the VPN suppliers and will impact the cybersecurity in the country. Based on Surfshark’s data, since 2004, yearly data breaches have reached 15B accounts. It means that 15B user data leaked, among them 260,746,787 (when writing the news post) belonging to the users from India.
Contact details of 18 out of 100 Indians were breached.
The problem is even more significant considering that they lost not only data but also cybercriminals stole the passwords. This happened to every 10th account from the breached ones.
This cybersecurity problem has more significant consequences because we are not talking about only private data. There might also be involved data from the government personnel. Therefore, the Indian Government’s actions impact their citizens’ privacy, which might damage the country sector’s growth caused by counterproductive actions.
According to Surfshark:
…Ultimately, collecting excessive amounts of data within Indian jurisdiction without robust protection mechanisms could lead to even more breaches nationwide…
Don’t let your data be stolen; consider the security actions today. Start with a VPN to protect your information and privacy with military-grade encryption.
Check our ranking of the BEST VPNs
Remember, a VPN is an intermediary service that forwards your data while protecting your identity and location.
Check The beginner’s guide written by our expert on Why use a VPN.
