VPNs are disappearing from Indian app stores – and a 2022 law could be the culprit
India has reportedly ordered the removal of a number of VPN apps from Apple and Google’s official app stores as they reportedly do not comply with local regulations.
According to the takedown notices reviewed by Ny Breaking, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued the takedown notice against Hide.me to both Apple and Google in late October 2024. Interestingly, the two notification notices refer to different sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000 – Section 79 and Section 66 respectively.
A recent report on TechCrunch now indicates that more than a half-dozen VPN apps have been removed from India’s official app stores so far, including Hide.me, PrivadoVPN, and Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1. Ny Breaking contacted some of the top VPN apps, all of whom confirmed that their apps are still available at the time of writing.
Why is India removing VPN apps?
Despite not being explicitly mentioned in the takedown notices, these orders appear to be the first implementation of India’s highly controversial data retention law that came into effect in 2022.
According to the new guidelines from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), VPN providers are required to keep user logs for at least five years so that they can hand over this data to authorities upon request.
The new rules caused an exodus of VPN companies from India, with ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Hide.me, Surfshark and Proton VPN removing their servers physically located in the country to avoid compromising their users’ privacy .
This is exactly why for Sebastian Schaub, CEO of Hide.me, the takedown orders don’t come as a total surprise after recent law changes added “an impossible burden for VPN providers to operate legally in the country,” he said.
Do you know that?
What is happening in India is not an isolated incident. Between July and September alone, around 60 VPN apps quietly disappeared from the Russian Apple App Store, bringing the total of unavailable applications on the Big Tech giant’s official store to 98.
“We find the actions of the Indian government deeply concerning. This kind of censorship should have no place in a democracy,” Schaub told Ny Breaking, 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 have confirmed to Ny Breaking that they have not received any takedown notices. Their VPN apps also remain available on India’s official app stores at the time of writing. These are NordVPN, Surfshark, Mullvad VPN and PureVPN.
Other providers – Proton VPN, ExpressVPN, Windscribe, IPVanish and Private Internet Access (PIA) – also confirmed that none of the above happened to their services when Ny Breaking was first contacted in November 2024.
We’ll continue to monitor the situation as it evolves and update the page accordingly, so check back if you have any concerns about your favorite VPN.