Over the past two decades, the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) has grown from its original niche corporate environment to widespread adoption in the mass consumer market. During this time, VPNs have also become crucial tools for human rights defenders, journalists, whistleblowers, and communities at risk of political persecution.
These services function as discreet power brokers: they have access to a panorama of users’ online activity, control the websites and content they can access, and log troves of sensitive data. The role of VPNs as a middle layer in online communications is what warrants proper caution and due diligence, as they might be vectors of risk in and of themselves; especially to communities in repressive environments or authoritarian contexts. Moreover, the claims made by VPN providers may give the wrong impression to users who can’t or don’t have the means to verify their policies, practices, and safeguards.
Ranking Digital Rights, with support from the Open Technology Fund, is kicking off a new project to address transparency and accountability shortcomings in the VPN ecosystem. In partnership with Breakpointing Bad and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, we will be developing a new methodology to assess the policies and practices of VPN providers through a human rights lens.
VPNs can easily provide the illusion of safety and security where there is none, or even exacerbate existing threats. False promises and hollow protections can have dire consequences. In the most restrictive regimes, this can mean the difference between continued freedom and draconian prison sentences for human rights advocates. Minorities, dissident collectives, and marginalized identity groups are disproportionately at risk in such contexts. For these communities, VPNs offer one of the few options available to organize, mobilize resistance, and exercise their rights online without exposing themselves to brutal crackdowns.
It is precisely because of how widespread and diverse the VPN user base has become that we want to ensure we are hearing from experts across the digital rights community and beyond. Over the past 13 years, we have engaged with researchers around the world as part of our process for developing and updating the RDR Index methodology.
For this project, we’re both prioritizing getting input and feedback from various communities and experts early in the process, and expanding our methods for doing so. We are starting the methodology design by conducting interviews, assembling focus groups, and circulating community surveys that will help us give shape to our evaluation and research approaches.
We want to hear from you!
We aim to gather inputs from researchers, advocates, technologists, and practitioners working on VPNs, privacy, circumvention, and digital rights globally. Your expertise and experience are essential to designing a methodology that addresses the key transparency and trust gaps in the VPN ecosystem.
If you have a few minutes to spare, please consider filling out this survey. Your responses are anonymous unless you choose to identify your organization and share your e-mail for follow-ups on the co-design process at the end of the survey.
Feel free to spread the word and help us by sharing it across your networks.
Find us in upcoming events to learn more and contribute to this project
From Friday, September 4 to Sunday, September 6, find us in Estoril, Portugal, for the 2026 edition of the Global Gathering.
We will be hosting a session titled Lights in the Tunnel: Co-Creating an Accountability Framework for VPN Transparency, on Saturday, September 5, at 15:00 pm local time.
We are planning a highly interactive conversation in which we will invite participants to discuss how VPN providers should be assessed, key policies and practices to be evaluated, and the most pressing transparency and accountability issues in the VPN ecosystem around the world.
From Wednesday, October 28 to Friday, October 30, find us in Barcelona, Spain, for the 2026 Mozilla Festival.
We will be organizing a discussion on the sidelines of MozFest to discuss the preliminary draft of the VPN assessment methodology and gather community feedback. Stay tuned for more information about the time, date, and place!
Finally, while not directly connected to our VPN transparency project, you can find us as part of the official MozFest program for the session titled Rewilding Our Gardens: Communal Governance in Tech Accountability Projects, on Friday, October 30, at 12:45 pm local time. The main question we will tackle is: How can small civil society initiatives grow and thrive in a landscape of adversity?
We hope you’ll be able to join us, in person or online, as we open up the conversation to discuss how we can—and should—hold VPN providers to account and raise the bar for transparency in the ecosystem.
