Can police track VPN, what it can get, and how to prevent it.
VPN is, undoubtedly, the most efficient means of protecting your identity on the Web. You’ll find recommendations to use it whenever you search for the topics of Internet safety. VPN hides your IP address and prevents any interferences. This way, you save your information from web hackers. However, what about the police? Can these people track your web activities when you use VPN?
For the live traffic that comes through VPN, the answer is NO. It is impossible to track it. However, it is possible to get information about your activities from the logs. Policemen can’t do it at the sole judgment. If they have a grounded reason, they must request a court order. And only if they get that warrant can they turn to your ISP (Internet service provider) for the logs. It is only when the ISP informs that you are using VPN, the police can turn to the VPN company.
All reputable providers are really concerned about their users’ safety and convenience. So, the company may or may not share the data about your web activity. An essential nuance is, a reliable VPN provider like VeePN does not log the users’ activities. Is it possible to change it? It will depend on the jurisdiction. But before we proceed to this aspect, let us first consider which exactly information the police can get.
What data can the police obtain from the VPN company?
Your regular ISP provider has to reveal your IP address if the policemen come with the court order. We already know that it is impossible to watch your actions online when you are in the VPN channel. That’s why the officials will request the usage and connection logs:
- Connection Logs contain information about your VPN connections. However, these data are not informative. There is nothing about your actions online. The data can only be helpful in connection with other logs.
- Traffic usage logs provide factual information. It can list the resources you visited. Such files can prove your certain activities and serve for further analysis.
However, even these data aren’t obligatorily available to the police. For instance, the VeePN no-logs policy means that the company won’t provide the above data. It does not have it.
Can the police make the VPN company log the user’s actions online?
Technically, it is possible. When the police present the court order, the VPN service provider must obey if it is under this jurisdiction. In practice, it means that any company that is registered in the USA or EU will have to obey. The state laws in these regions will force VPN providers to break their no-logs policies.
It will be different, though, when the company operates in different regions that aren’t under the US or EU law jurisdiction. VeePN is registered in Panama. It obeys this state’s laws. Hence, even a warrant from the US court is not a law. VeePN can say NO, and it says it.
There is a chance to start an international legal inquiry. But these cases take a long time. The police will have to collect all the necessary documents from different authorities. It will be months of work. One thing is investigating some felony. But it is not your case, isn’t it? In most cases, users just don’t want to be spied upon while doing some regular innocent things.
What to look for when choosing a reliable VPN provider?
As a rule, VPN users have nothing to do with committing crimes. They pursue practical goals. These are to protect themselves in public hotspots, to conceal the IP addresses from the web trackers, etc. Many also want to be sure that no one can access personal data on the VPN provider’s side.
When you are choosing the VPN solution, pay attention to the following aspects:
- No-logs policy. We already clarified the value of this feature. However, check the privacy policies carefully. Some services claim that they don’t log their users’ activities. However, it might not be so. Make sure that the service won’t collect your data.
- Jurisdiction. This information is present on the official website. It is not a burning issue for regular law-abiding users. Still, it can be an additional safety guarantee.
- Ram disk servers. Such servers don’t store any data. On the restart, they erase any information collected there before. Thus, it is a significant additional security measure. Even if the physical server is lost, it won’t reveal any information.
- Complete protection of such data as IP address and DNS records. It comes by default for any trustworthy VPN provider that the user’s details are secret and can’t ever leak.
- Internet Kill Switch. If your VPN connection is broken for even a second, the switch kills the session immediately. Thus, you may be sure that your data won’t be revealed accidentally.
The most reputable and popular VPN providers all match these requirements. On the VeePN official website, you can get familiar with all the details. For instance, this company is Panama-based. It certainly may not obey the police requests to provide the users’ data.
Conclusion
VPN companies do their best to provide users with easy and reliable methods of protection on the Web. However, it is not a protection for people engaged in criminal activities. There are many other efficient methods to catch criminals. Also, decent VPN providers don’t condone illegal actions. However, in all other cases, our service will be glad to make your online presence safe!
