vpn The dispute continues. In a fresh directive, the government has reportedly barred its employees from using third-party virtual private networks (VPNs) and anonymity services offered by companies such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark and Tor. The directive comes days after these VPN service providers threatened to remove their servers from India in protest against the new rules announced by India’s cyber security agency Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In). Here’s what the instructions say and more:
*Guidelines have been issued National Informatics Center ,NIC), which is under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The document is titled Cyber Security Guidelines for Government Employees. The document, seen by Economic Times, aims to sensitize government employees and contractual/outsourced resources and create awareness among them about the do’s and don’ts from cyber security point of view.
* All government employees including temporary, contractual/outsourced resources are asked to strictly adhere to the guidelines mentioned in the document. Any non-compliance can be acted upon by the concerned CISOs/Heads of Departments.
* The directive asks government employees not to “save any internal, restricted or confidential government data files such as any non-government cloud service. google drive Or Dropbox.”
* It asks government employees not to ‘jailbreak’ or ‘root’ their mobile phones.
* Not using any external mobile app-based scanner services such as CamScanner to scan “internal government documents”.
* On 28 April, CERT-In had issued a set of rules that mandated VPN companies operating in India to maintain a log of their customers’ details, including names, addresses, and the VPN for that purpose. The service was being used. However, the rules do not apply to corporate VPNs.
Despite protests from companies and industry bodies, the government has so far stood by its stand. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrashekhar Speaking to the media earlier this month, he said that companies that do not want to comply with the rules are “free to leave India”. The minister told reporters that the government would adopt a “zero-tolerance” policy on anonymity, which is a cover for online crimes, and that production of evidence was a “clear obligation” on VPN service providers, social media intermediaries and instant messaging platforms.
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