government has already been increasing its control of the internet to clamp down on any dissent and people are already under increasing surveillance she saidthese new rules make it even worsewhile authorities have clarified that the rules do not apply to corporate vpns protonvpn said they are are an assault on privacy and threaten to put citizens under a microscope of surveillance adding that it would maintain its nologs policysurfshark also has a strict nologs policy which means that we dont collect or share our customer browsing data or any usage information said gytis malinauskas its legal headeven technically we would not be able to comply with the logging requirements he addeda spokesperson for nordvpn one of the worlds largest providers said that while they welcomed the governments intentions to improve the state of cybersecurity we believe that the discussion period should be extendedif it comes to it we will consider removing our presence from indiathe information technology industry council a global coalition said the new directives including the overbroad definition of reportable incidents and sixhour reporting timeline could actually undermine cybersecuritythe risk of surveillance for millions of people is exacerbated by the data retention mandate in certins directive said raman jit singh chima asia pacific policy director at access now in an open letter on jun 1requiring service providers including vpn providers to log information that they may otherwise not collect for five years or more violates the right to privacy protected by the indian constitution he saidindias information technology ministry could not be reached for commentauthorities have declined requests from tech firms and digital rights groups to delay implementation and have said the reporting timeline is very generouseveryone at riskindia is not the only country cracking down on vpns russia banned several vpn services last year as part of a wider campaign that critics say curbs internet freedom although it has failed to block them entirelyrussias moves to block global news sites and social media platforms after its invasion of ukraine similar to chinas great firewall have led to concerns that the internet is splitting along geopolitical lines digitally isolating peopleindias new directive was drawn up with little consultation with the tech industry or with civil society organisations said prateek waghre policy director at internet freedom foundation a digital rights advocacy group in delhibecause of that there are now a bunch of directions that are ambiguous with a tremendous compliance burden including potential imprisonment for noncompliance he saidthe rules have the potential to cause a great deal of harm particularly in the absence of a data protection law he addedwhile there is a clear need for enhanced cybersecurity when you ask for indiscriminate data collection everyone is at risk and there is greater risk for people already at risk such as activists journalists dissenters minorities