More than half-a-dozen VPN apps, together with Cloudflare’s widely-used 1.1.1.1, have been pulled from India’s Apple App Store and Google Play Store following intervention from authorities authorities, TechCrunch has discovered.
The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs issued removing orders for the apps, in response to a doc reviewed by TechCrunch and a disclosure made by Google to Lumen, Harvard University’s database that tracks authorities takedown requests globally.
Among the affected apps are Hide.me and PrivadoVPN. In communication to one of many affected builders, seen by TechCrunch, Apple cited a “demand” from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center, a part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which deemed the developer content material to contravene Indian legislation.
The ministry, in addition to Apple, Google and Cloudflare, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
This enforcement motion marks the primary vital implementation of India’s 2022 regulatory framework governing VPN apps. The guidelines mandate that VPN suppliers and cloud service operators preserve complete data of their clients, together with names, addresses, IP addresses and transaction histories, for a five-year interval.
The stringent necessities prompted pushback from main trade gamers. Leading manufacturers like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, SurfShark and ProtonVPN voiced vital reservations concerning the guidelines, with a number of asserting plans to withdraw their server infrastructure from India.
NordVPN, ExpressVPN and SurfShark proceed to keep up providers for Indian clients, although they’ve stopped advertising their apps within the nation.
