India's VPN Crackdown: Major App Stores Remove Popular Services Amid New Regulations

Recent developments have emerged regarding the status of VPN applications in India, prompting significant action from major app marketplaces. The Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store have taken steps to remove several virtual private network (VPN) applications, marking what appears to be a significant enforcement initiative. This action follows the implementation of government regulations that require VPN service providers to gather and maintain user data.

As per information obtained, the Ministry of Home Affairs directed both Google and Apple to eliminate a selection of VPN applications from their platforms. This directive was communicated to Google on October 29 and later discovered documented in the Lumen database.

One of the prominent applications affected is the 1.1.1.1 app by Cloudflare, known for its content delivery network services. Additional notable applications that were also removed include Touch VPN, X-VPN, Hide.me, and PrivadoVPN. At the time this information was reported, both Google and Apple had already restricted access to these applications.

While several VPN apps have been pulled, others, like Proton VPN, ExpressVPN, and Private Internet Access Access, and Mullvad, continue to remain available on both app marketplaces. The recent removals follow a two-year period since the government mandated that VPN providers in India collect and hold user data spanning at least five years. In April 2022, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) announced that providers are expected to retain names, addresses, IP addresses, and various other contact information of users located in India.

In light of these requirements, several significant VPN providers, including ExpressVPN, Surfshark, NordVPN, and Private Internet Access, made declarations two months after the rule was established, stating their unwillingness to adhere to the regulations and subsequently ceased operations of their physical VPN servers in India. However, it is important to note that these VPN services still cater to users in India despite the absence of local server operations.