Can Police Track VPN Connections and Activities?
A VPN service is an extremely useful tool, as it helps you unlock all restricted sites and browse the Internet in complete privacy and anonymity. It’s great for privacy-conscientious users who want to protect their valuable personal and financial information from prying eyes.
But, does this apply in all situations, and is a VPN service really the ultimate privacy and anonymity card in the online world? Can police track VPN users when undertaking illegal activities? In this week’s Zlog, we’ll answer these questions and many other important matters attached to this topic.
Can a VPN Give Out Your Information to Police?
This is a topic many VPN users are worried about. And, when it comes to this issue, it all depends on how much data the VPN service collects on its users. This is why you should pay great attention to the VPN’s privacy policy before signing up, as you may see some conditions you don’t want to accept. When it comes to the type of data a VPN can collect from its users, there are three main categories:
- Connection Logs – This category contains the specific times of logging, your IP address, the IP address assigned to you, and other data.
- Usage Logs – This type of collection includes logging all of the sites you visit.
- No Logs – No logs of your activities, the only information needed is for billing your account.
With that said, at ZoogVPN we are committed to complete transparency of our VPN service. Our VPN service falls out in the last-mention category of the three. We guarantee a strict no-logs policy. This means no activity logging, monitoring, or storing any of your activities while using our VPN service.
We also have a Warrant Canary on our website, which openly discloses whether we have received any requests, data seizes, or subpoenas from a government organization. As of writing this article, we haven’t received any requests, nor have shared any confidential user information.
Can Police Track VPN Users in Real-Time?
Since your online activities are routed through a virtual server when connected to a VPN service, there’s no way for police to track you live through an encrypted VPN tunnel. The only way they can get information on you is to first go to your ISP to get the data they have. After that, they can go to the VPN service itself and ask for any information it has on you.
In most cases, the police don’t even care what you’re buying or selling online, provided you’re not doing anything illegal. If you are engaging in illegal activities, a VPN can’t be of any help. This is because they are required to share any information they may have according to specific data retention laws.
That said, while they’re obliged to share all of the information with the police, the amount of data they collect on you also depends on the VPN’s internal policy regarding data collection.
Is it Legal to Use a VPN?
Generally speaking, most countries around the globe don’t forbid their citizens to use VPN services. That said, the legality of VPN services can vary significantly from country to country. Some countries strive to control the Internet and censor the activities of their citizens.
Major world powers like China and Russia have declared VPNs illegal. In some countries around the world, such as North Korea and Iraq, you won’t even be able to download a VPN client in the first place, as they’re dedicated to banning all Virtual Private Networks.
But, even though VPNs might be legal in your country, doing illegal activities with a VPN is not permissible by law. If you’re doing something illegal and trying to hurt someone, while also trying to conceal it with a VPN, you can still be prosecuted under the laws of your country.
With all of the above in mind, we would like to leave you with one key takeaway. Being completely anonymous online is nearly impossible in today’s world. However, police also can’t track every VPN user easily. It’s too expensive and time-consuming for them to try and find very user who torrents or share information online using a VPN, which is why they seldom do so.
A VPN is a convenient tool in the online world that provides you with a long list of benefits. If you’re looking for a top-quality VPN service, sign up today. Try our free VPN plan or choose one of our premium paid service plans.
- Yaroslav S.CEO at ZoogVPN. Yaroslav is a versatile manager with extensive customer support experience. His historical background and a deep passion for philosophy perfectly complete a real desire to create meaningful content and tech products.
