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Although most people use VPN services to protect their privacy, many of these VPN companies (such as IPVanish and PureVPN) may retain user data for reasons unknown.
Users looking for VPNs do not have to look too much, due the number of companies providing Virtual private network services are high. However, despite most VPN provider’s motto to ensure users’ privacy and do not retain any user information, many companies have been found to share their user information with the government, which in turn poses a threat to privacy and a question for users regarding who to trust. A pair of companies to retain user data is IPVanish and PureVPN, highlighting that these companies had previously stated to not retain any user data.
Do VPN providers always keep logs?
In a recent interview, the FBI claimed that “there is no VPN that doesn’t keep logs.” This statement, of course, sparked concerns all over the VPN user base since individuals who use these services are very preoccupied about their online privacy. Virtual Private Networks had been a reliable solution regarding safeguarding online personal information, however, there seem to be doubts about the use of VPNs for the time being.
Some points must be taken into consideration, such as considering that while Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers use tunneled connections to mask their locations, they don’t always succeed at doing so. One of VPN use strongest point is that they don’t retain information received during the online session while using the VPN. Once the user connects to the remote server, the IP they had before the connection is not stored.
If the vital information mentioned above were to be filtered in some way, the use of VPNs would be of no use. According to experts, many Virtual Private network providers who claim to not store user data, actually do. The controversy was first sparked by a court case, crucial evidence about the offender was found by the FBI, even though he used a VPN. Now, this also poses a question, where do we draw the line between masking criminal activity and guarding personal information about people just not wanting to be spied?
If we go by statements made by VPN providers, then the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should not have been able to collect information and determine if someone used Tor or a VPN to mask their connection. However, the agency managed to do just that during the recent investigation, and even identify that the offender was using a Protonmail email account.
The offender used IPVanish and PureVPN, companies that currently are being heavily criticized by users for revealing users’ online activity, things are looking pretty bad for both IPVanish and PureVPN for the moment. This goes off to show that not only these two companies are not reliable, but that we must choose carefully who we put our trust in.
