Your VPN could be giving your browsing data to China, watchdog says

A new report says 17 VPN apps that are available on Google and Apple's App Stores have undisclosed ties to China.

Using a free app to hide your internet traffic? The company behind it could be quietly tied to China, where the government maintains the ability to surveil all user data, according to a report published Thursday by the Technology Transparency Project.

The report accuses 17 Apps — six on Apple’s App Store, four on the Google Play Store and seven on both — of having undisclosed ties to China. In several cases, the TTP linked the app developers to a prominent Chinese cybersecurity company, Qihoo 360, which is under U.S. government sanctions.

The apps are all virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow a user to divert their internet traffic through a company’s internet connection. With names like VPNify, Ostrich VPN and Now VPN, none of them make overt references to China or Chinese ownership on the app stores.

VPNs are primarily used to either protect a user’s privacy by making it harder for a website to know who’s visiting them, or to skirt around censorship measures. But unless a VPN company takes significant steps to automatically and permanently delete its users’ search histories, a company is likely to keep records of its customers’ internet activity.

That is particularly notable if the company is Chinese, as national law there stipulates that intelligence and law enforcement agencies do not need a warrant to view any personal data that is stored there.