On December 19, 2016, police officer Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş shot and killed Karlov at a photography exhibition in Ankara. After the assassination, which led to Altıntaş’ death as well, social media posts and emails written by the police officer were deleted via a VPN. Turkish authorities tracked the allocated IP address to ExpressVPN, a highly popular and well-known VPN company. Much to the authorities’ dismay, they could not find any information incriminating the perpetrators, due to the fact that ExpressVPN does not retain any data logs. ExpressVPN is based in the British Virgin Islands where there are no data retention requirements. The company stated that “ExpressVPN does not and has never possessed any customer connection logs that would enable [them] to know which customer was using the specific IPs cited by the investigators.” The proof that ExpressVPN does not retain data logs is reassuring. While many VPNs nowadays claim to delete data logs, recent cases show that not all of them do. Furthermore, ExpressVPN has taken steps outside of these cases to demonstrate their commitment to their privacy policy. ExpressVPN recently underwent an audit by PwC, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, to confirm its commitment to its privacy policy. In October 2017, PureVPN faced accusations of providing the FBI with information that led to the arrest of cyberstalker Ryan S. Lin. PureVPN stated that the company does not retain user activity, although it does log the IP addresses of users. HMA, another popular VPN provider, had a similar occurrence back in 2011 when members of LulzSec hacked Sony Pictures and boasted using HMA to conceal their identities. The CDT recently claimed that Hotspot Shield, a free anonymous VPN proxy service, collected user data and intercepted traffic which they then shared with third-party advertisers. The fact that Turkish officials could not trace the culprit of the deleted files is a refreshing affirmation to ExpressVPN’s security. “While it’s unfortunate that security tools can be abused for illicit purposes,” ExpressVPN concluded in their statement, “they are critical for our safety and the preservation of our right to privacy online. ExpressVPN is fundamentally opposed to any efforts to install “backdoors” or attempts by governments to otherwise undermine such technologies.” Let’s hope that other VPN companies follow ExpressVPN’s lead. Only use our recommended and safest VPNs The information above can be used to track you, target you for ads, and monitor what you do online.
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