The Sweden - based VPN provider Mullvad says that it was recently serve with a hunting warrant by police that demanded the company turn over log of user data . The only problem ? Mullvad does n’t seem to pile up any such logs .
On Thursday , the company publisheda blog postabout the incident , tell that two days earlier , on April 18 , officers from the National Operations Department — Sweden ’s top constabulary force — visited the VPN provider ’s headquarters with the intent to “ appropriate electronic computer with customer data . ” Mullvad suppose that the pig walk off empty handed :
Swedish Police … intended to clutch computers with customer datum . In line with ourpoliciessuch client data point did not exist . We argued they had no reason to carry to ascertain what they were looking for and any seizure would therefore be illegal under Swedish law . After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them confer with the prosecutor they allow without taking anything and without any customer information .
Photo: spaxiax (Shutterstock)
The doubtfulness of whether VPN companies collect and depot log of user data isa heavy effect for the manufacture . The whole point of a VPN is that it ’s supposed to protect your privacy — and that think the ability toroute your World Wide Web trafficthrough a supplier ’s server without the company collecting data that can later be turned over to constabulary or sold to a third - party . Almost all companies swear that they do n’t hoard log — and that they never would . However , time and metre again , incident require police reveal that some VPN companies either have been collecting entropy unbeknown to users or that they willcollect informationabout a specific user at the behest of police .
That ’s what happened in the case of a provider called PureVPN in 2017 . The U.S. Justice Department collar a cyberstalker accused of despicable natural action bygrabbing IP address logsthat had been collect by the concealment provider . Arresting a cyberstalker is a good matter , but what the arrest revealed was that PureVPN had been keeping information that a lot of users thought was private . ( It should be noted that PureVPN has since committed toa “ zero - logarithm ” insurance , and read it usesindependent auditsto control this commitment ) .
There are obviously some pretty forged people out there and there are clearly time when cops reallyneed accessto a person ’s web activity . Unfortunately , party that collect drug user logs defeat the intact breaker point of a VPN . The whole point is that nobody has access to your data but you .
Gizmodo reached out to Sweden ’s National Operations Department to ask about the incident involving Mullvad and will update this level if we hear back .
information processing system networkingComputingInternet secrecy
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