India To VPN Companies: Do What We Want Or Get Out Of India
You might recall that I did a story on India wanting VPN companies to retain data on who uses their services, and VPN companies considering their options including leaving the company. India has now escalated this by saying the following:
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team clarified (PDF) on Wednesday that “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” shall follow the directive, called Cyber Security Directions, that requires them to store customers’ names, email addresses, IP addresses, know your customer records, financial transactions for a period of five years.
And:
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the junior IT minister of India, said that VPN providers who wish to conceal who uses their services “will have to pull out.” He also said that there won’t be any public consultation on these rules.
Keep in mind that India is the second largest Internet market on the planet. So I am guessing that the Indian government is counting on the fact that VPN providers will comply rather than give up doing business in that market. And even if some or most of them do leave, the Indian government will win anyway because it will leave the VPN companies that do comply with their directive. That of course assumes that Indian citizens don’t just go out and get a VPN service from outside the country. After all, it’s not like we haven’t seen that happen before.
This will be interesting to see as I suspect that the push back will be substantial from both sides, and only one side will win. Let’s see which side that is.
June 3, 2022 at 8:26 am
[…] are thinking twice about being in the country as a result. The Indian Government has even said do what we want you to do or get out. Well, ExpressVPN has decided to get […]