India has reportedly ordered the removal of some VPN apps from the country’s official Apple and Google app stores for allegedly not complying with local rules.
According to the takedown notices reviewed by TechRadar, the Home Office issued the takedown order to both Apple and Google against Hide.me at the end of October 2024. Interestingly, the two notice messages refer to different sections of the Act. of Information Technology. 2000 – Articles 79 and 66 respectively.
A recent report in TechCrunch now indicates that more than half a dozen VPN apps have been removed from official Indian app stores so far, including Hide.me, PrivadoVPN, and Cloudflare 1.1.1.1. TechRadar contacted some of the best VPN apps and they all confirmed that their apps were still available at the time of writing.
Why is India killing VPN apps?
Despite not being explicitly mentioned in the takedown notices, these orders appear to be the first enactment of India’s highly controversial data retention law to apply in 2022.
According to new directives from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), VPN providers must retain user logs for at least five years to hand over this data to authorities upon request.
The new rules sparked an exodus of VPN companies from India, with companies like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Hide.me, Surfshark and Proton VPN removing their servers physically located in the country to avoid compromising the privacy of their users.
This is exactly why for Sebastian Schaub, CEO of Hide.me, the takedown orders don’t come as a total surprise after recent amendments to the law added “an impossible burden on VPN providers to operate legally in the country,” he said.
Know?
What is happening in India is not an isolated case. Between July and September alone, around 60 VPN apps quietly disappeared from Apple’s Russian App Store, bringing the total of apps unavailable in the tech giant’s official store to 98.
“We find the Indian government’s actions very concerning. This type of censorship should have no place in a democracy,” Schaub told TechRadar, adding that India’s decision follows similar actions by Russia and China in the past.
As of today, January 3, 2025, some of the biggest names in the VPN market confirmed to TechRadar that they have not received any takedown notifications. Their VPN apps are also still available on official app stores in India at the time of writing. These are NordVPN, Surfshark, Mullvad VPN and PureVPN.
Other providers (Proton VPN, ExpressVPN, Windscribe, and Private Internet Access (PIA)) also confirmed that none of the above occurred with their services when first approached by TechRadar in November 2024.
People in India are also unable to register or download VPN apps from IPVanish. However, this comes from a voluntary decision the provider made when the new rules were applied to protect its no-logging policy commitment.
“In 2022, IPVanish removed our mobile apps from the App Store and Google Play Store in India, prevented Indian customers from registering on our website, and removed physical servers located in India from our network,” an IPVanish spokesperson told TechRadar.
We’ll continue to monitor the situation as it evolves and update the page accordingly, so check back if you’re concerned your favorite VPN may be affected.
