46 Out of 83 VPNs Do Not Comply With GDPR - Research by VPNRanks.com

SINGAPORE, June 7, 2018 (Newswire.com) - General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new privacy regulation set by the European Union to safeguard users personal information and grant them control over their data. There were several talks revolving around this legislation and the last date to implement GDPR was on May 25, 2018.

GDPR provides a regulatory framework and enhances transparency regarding how online businesses and tech companies collect and use information from different users. If any company fails to comply with GDPR, then there are hefty stipulations with fines amounting up to €20 million or 4% of their worldwide annual revenues.

To find out which VPN providers complied with GDPR, VPNRanks.com conducted an in-depth study by analyzing privacy policy of various VPN services. Their results revealed that 46 out of 83 VPN providers did not comply with GDPR.

The research included popular VPN services, including the likes of ExpressVPN, NordVPN, PureVPN, VyprVPN, and IPVanish – all of whom complied with GDPR. VPN providers that did not meet GDPR requirements included several free services such as Windscribe and renowned premium providers such as SafeVPN, TotalVPN, CELOVPN, PrivateVPN, and VPN Unlimited.

VPNRanks.com carried out the research based on certain criteria. The website analyzed the of privacy policy of each VPN provider based on the eight rights of an individual as per GDPR. These rights included:

1.       The right to be informed

2.       The right of access

3.       The right to rectification

4.       The right to erasure

5.       The right to restrict processing

6.       The right to data portability

7.       The right to object

8.       Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling

The best VPN service providers that explained and included these rights were GDPR compliant. However, services that didn’t include these rights or failed to meet them in their privacy policy were noncompliant. In addition, the review website compared the earlier versions of privacy policies through a web archive tool called Wayback Machine.

The results from the study provided valuable insights for all VPN users, especially those residing or traveling to Europe. According to VPNRanks.com Senior Editor, Aazii, “GDPR has left several businesses scrambling to update their privacy policy, but it provides a great opportunity for the VPN industry to garner more transparency. However, it was a surprise to see that not every VPN provider was GDPR ready. The VPN industry is far behind in meeting GDPR requirements as more than 50 percent of the services in our research failed to comply with GDPR…”.

Source: VPNRanks