Surfshark Is the Latest VPN to Remove Servers in India Over New Law
Surfshark is joining ExpressVPN in removing its physical VPN servers in India due to a new policy requiring VPN providers in the country to collect and turn over data on their subscribers.
“Surfshark proudly operates under a strict ‘no logs’ policy, so such new requirements go against the core ethos of the company,” the company said(Opens in a new window) on Tuesday.
Surfshark will shut down the servers before India’s new rules on VPN data collection take effect on June 27. “Up until then, users will be able to connect to servers in India as usual,” it said.
Despite the impending shutdown, Surfshark still plans on serving users in the country by replacing physical servers with virtual VPN servers meant for the Indian market. These servers will be physically based in Singapore and London, but they’ll have IP addresses registered to India. Using these Indian IP addresses will thus allow a VPN connection to appear as if it comes from India.
"Users in India who don’t use Indian servers will not notice any differences —they will still be able to connect to whichever server outside the country they please,” Surfshark added.
India is adopting the data-collection requirement to help local authorities fight cybercrime. However, the same policy goes against the main selling point to using a VPN, which are often marketed as tools to protect your digital privacy.
Specifically, the new policy in India will require VPN providers to collect and potentially turn over which IP addresses their customers have been using, along with their names and email addresses. The IP address data could then be used to map out a customer’s browsing history when combined with information from other websites.
In response, many VPN providers say they
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