Major global providers of virtual private networks, which let internet users shield their identities online, are shutting down their servers in India to protest new government rules they say threaten their customers’ privacy.
Newley Purnell for The Wall Street Journal:
The Indian agency overseeing computer security will soon require VPN operators in India to collect information such as customer’s names, email addresses and the IP addresses they use to connect to the internet. Providers must maintain the data for at least five years and furnish the information to authorities when asked…
[T]he withdrawing VPN companies and internet-rights groups say by collecting such data, the companies will imperil their users’ privacy and curtail online speech. Digital groups say the government’s rules amount to overreach and are more typical of those imposed in China or Russia than in democracies.
Such rules are “typically introduced by authoritarian governments in order to gain more control over their citizens,” said a spokeswoman for Nord Security, provider of NordVPN, which has stopped operating its servers in India. “If democracies follow the same path, it has the potential to affect people’s privacy as well as their freedom of speech,” she said.
The rules are the latest challenge facing international technology companies in the world’s most populous democracy… The government has in recent years moved to tamp down online dissent on platforms such as Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook…
Also affected by the new rules are global cloud operators, which will be required to store and furnish data on customers.
Representatives for Amazon Web Services, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. declined to comment on whether they would comply with the new regulations, or if they were already following the rules. A spokesman for Apple Inc. didn’t respond to a request for comment.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, this would affect Apple’s iCloud Private Relay which is designed to protect user privacy by ensuring that when users browse the web in Safari, no single party — not even Apple — can see both who you are and what sites you’re visiting.
Apple’s service would not comply with India’s draconian privacy-destroying regulations.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said it best:
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.
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