According to TechCrunch reports, multiple Virtual Private Network (VPN) applications have been removed from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in India. More than two years after the government issued rules requiring VPN service providers to collect and store customer details, the apps appear to be the first blow against those apps. Several VPN providers have previously shut down their actual servers in response to rules released in April 2022, but are still serving customers in India.
VPN apps withheld in India after deletion of request
According to a document from TechCrunch, the Home Office has sent orders to Google and Apple, requiring companies to remove multiple VPN apps from the Play Store and the App Store, respectively. The government’s request for Google was sent on October 29 and was recently discovered by a publication in the Lumen database.
One of the most famous VPN applications extracted from two app stores is CloudFlare’s 1.1.1.1 App, a U.S.-based content delivery network service provider. Other applications that have also been removed include Touch VPN, X-VPN, hide.me, and privadovpn.
Both Google and Apple have retained access to these apps at the time of publishing this story. Other VPN applications, such as Proton VPN, Express VPN, private Internet access and Mullvad, are still available on both platforms.
It has been more than two years since the government ordered VPN providers that provide services in the country to collect and store customer details within five years. In April 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) stated that the providers need to store the names, recipients, IP addresses and other contact information of Indian user users.
Two months after Cert-In issued an order, well-known VPN providers such as ExpressVPN, Surfshark, NordVPN and private Internet access announced that they would not comply with the rules, and subsequently shut down physical VPN Servers in India. It is worth noting that even if these service providers do not operate in the country, these service providers will still provide VPN services to their customers.
