This last Friday, the Russian lower Parliament passed a bill to ban VPNs and outlaw anonymous proxy services. The bill passed with widespread unanimous support throughout the entire Russian legislative body.
While the bill still needs to be passed by the upper chamber of parliament, and Vladimir Putin, expectation is that the law will soon come into effect bringing drastic ramifications for internet users in Russia who value anonymity and online security–as well as the ability to access blocked websites with VPNs.
Russia Has been Gunning for VPNs for Years
For years now, Russia has been using explicit content as justification to hinder VPN usage. By using blanket statements that allow officials to classify VPNs as tools for criminals or terrorists, they can effectively block large portions of the internet without any sort of contention.
Tons of websites are censored in Russia that fall outside the scope of things like child pornography, extremism, and other forms of content. Social Networks, LGBT content, and other websites are censored due to the conservative ideals of the Russian government.
No Court Order Needed for VPN Ban?
The latest VPN ban aims to ensure that websites cannot be unblocked and viewed by the Russian population. In order to do so, the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service is now supposed to hunt down VPN services and ban access to them. These bans appeal to be warranted without a court order.
Any VPN provider who can comply with Russian demands and cease access to blocked websites will be unmolested. However, this would require VPN services to collect logs and user data based on user requests, and place limits on activity–effectively undermining the entire purpose of anonymity and VPNs.
If China Can’t Ban VPNs – Can Russia?
As we’ve mentioned before on the blog, Russia seems more and more intent on copying the “Chinese model of internet”. Even now, China itself is also trying to ban VPNs, despite their success with the “Great Firewall”.
While China has possibly even more strict internet than Russia, we can still see evidences of China users circumventing censorship which leads us to conclude that VPN isn’t going away anytime soon.
Russia seems serious about banning VPNs, but it only shows to validate their use. VPNs are mandatory tools for citizens in countries like Russia and China which is why they are getting so much attention from the government. VPNs like TorGuard are powerful tools that allow citizens to undermine censorship completely and use the internet freely.
