Cops Raid Swedish VPN Provider Only to Find Out There's No 'There' There
upstart writes:
Cops Raid Swedish VPN Provider Only To Find Out There's No 'There' There:
[...] So, it always gives me pleasure to learn that cops armed with court orders approached a privacy oriented tech company only to find out the stuff they wanted didn't actually exist at the place they searched. Due diligence is a thing, investigators. Your boilerplate is obviously false if you've claimed (based on "training and expertise") that the place you want to search contains the information you wish to obtain.
That's the case here. A Swedish VPN provider was raided by local law enforcement, but was unable to produce any of the information officers were searching for... something officers might have realized prior to the search if they'd bothered to read the terms of service. Here's Michael Kan with the details for PC World:
The company today reported that Swedish police had issued a search warrant two days earlier to investigate Mullvad VPN's office in Gothenburg, Sweden. "They intended to seize computers with customer data," Mullvad said.
However, Swedish police left empty-handed. It looks like Mullvad's own lawyers stepped in and pointed out that the company maintains a strict no-logging policy on customer data. This means the VPN service will abstain from collecting a subscriber's IP address, web traffic, and connection timestamps, in an effort to protect user privacy. (It's also why Mullvad VPN is among our most highly ranked VPN services.)
If the cops had run a search of Mullvad's website before running a physical search of its offices, it might have discovered the stuff they swore would be found there actually wouldn't be found on Mullvad's premises. It's not like it's that difficult to find:
There is a law to collect user data in India and other countries. Does this affect Mullvad?
Mullvad does not collect user data. Mullvad is based in Sweden and none of the Swedish regulations (https://mullvad.net/help/swedish-legislation/) can force VPN providers to secretly collect traffic-related data. We also have no servers, infrastructure or staff in India.
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