In most places, using a VPN is legal. After all, we’re talking about a piece of software that is installed on your own computer, smartphone or tablet. But, the situation gets more complicated in some countries where governments like to control what their constituents are reading, listening and watching — both online and offline.
So there is no straight “yes” or “no” answer for the entire planet. We will, however, try to provide you with some guidelines, like where you can use a VPN without any worries and where you may have to hide it.
For start, a VPN is legal in North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, as well as many other democracies. Now, let’s see some specific cases…
Yes, you can use a VPN in China
But only if you’re not a Chinese citizen — if you are a Chinese citizen, you can face a fine. That, however, hasn’t stopped people from using VPNs in order to access popular social media services, major global news sites, video streaming services like Netflix and so on.
Foreigners are NOT included under this rule, but they may have a hard time accessing popular VPN services’ websites from China. So, before landing in Beijing (or wherever you intend to travel), make sure to have a VPN app running on all your devices. Otherwise, it may be hard to install it later on.
In Turkey, a VPN user is marked as a “person of interest”
It is a regular occurrence that many popular websites are inaccessible in Turkey, with citizens and foreigners turning to VPNs to access the Western media and social media sites that have been banned in the country.
The problem is that the use of a VPN — if it gets detected by the authorities — can turn some people into “persons of interest” in the eyes of law enforcement agencies. It is, however, worth adding that nobody has so far been punished just for using a VPN, but the use of such tools has been among the political reasons for going after some foreigners — according to digital rights activist Isik Mater.
So, we could say VPNs are semi-legal in Turkey. You can download them, but you may want to use them carefully.
Iran wants to regulate VPNs
VPNs are not legal in Iran, despite people using them on a regular basis. The government realized this, and in November 2019 – Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace Abolhassan Firouzabadi said they are working on introducing government-approved VPN operators.
“We agree that different accessibility levels should be defined for different types of internet for users and for this purpose, we have tasked the Working Group to come up with a specific guideline regarding internet accessibility,” he said at the time, adding: “We are hoping that this plan will come on stream soon.”
No specific dates were offered nor an explanation of what constitutes a “government-approved VPN operator” — which, honestly, sounds scary. In fact, we tend to think that in order to qualify for such a title, a VPN provider will have to share some (if not all) data with the government. And that kinda kills the point of a VPN, which not only lets users access geo-restricted content but also allows them to anonymously browse the web.
The situation is similarly scary in some other countries
Most countries in the Middle East are notorious for not letting their citizens browse the world wide web in its entirety. For that reason, people are flocking to VPNs just to get their “daily fix” of real news as well as to access popular social media sites.
We’re talking about places such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, North Korea, Russia and so on — where the use of VPN may not be 100% legal.
Still, foreigners tend to be excluded from these rules and are free to use VPNs whenever and wherever they want.
Nevertheless, the impact of some bans such as those imposed by the Great Firewall of China affects everyone in China, not just the local population. Though with a good VPN, you can bypass those restrictions.
The bottom line
As we have noted at the beginning of this article, there is no simple answer to the question of whether VPNs are legal or not. In the Western hemisphere, you can install whatever you want on your own computer and smartphone. On the other hand, there could be some sanctions in certain places but even there, foreigners are good to go with any regulation(s) mostly applying to the local population. Nonetheless, you should have a VPN running on all your devices before hitting the ground in a foreign country.
A good VPN will keep you protected while allowing you to access the internet in its entirety. In addition, it will also let you access popular streaming services, download and upload files via BitTorrent, and so on. Whatever you do online, your identity will remain anonymous with a VPN hiding your web whereabouts from major corporations and various government agencies.
If you still don’t have a VPN, start by checking our list of Best of the Best VPNs and take it from there. You’ll thank us later.