One of the best VPN services around right now, IPVanish, has successfully come through with flying colors an independent third-party audit to certify its no-logs promises.
Cybersecurity consulting firm Leviathan Security Group confirmed that the VPN provider complies with the data-handling practices stated in its Privacy Policy.
"In order to keep our users truly safe while they use our service, we do not log or store any data about your connections or your activity. This means that we don’t know where or how you’re connecting to the internet or what you are doing online when using our VPN," said the provider.
IPVanish gave Leviathan Security Group access to all its documents, technology and team members. The audit panel conducted thorough interviews with employees as well as various technical assessments to test the trustworthiness of its policy.
While some data is kept for functional purposes - such as email addresses, billing information and certain preferences - IPVanish never logs any identifying traffic data or details about its users' online activities. These include search history, apps running in the background, streaming details as well as upload and download activities.
For customers, it is vital to know how their data is collected, stored and used. That's why VPN audits conducted by trusted third-party experts are an important practice to safeguard the safety of users by providing an independent verification over the companies' policies. And in 2018, IPVanish came under fire after its holding company was implicated in a story about handing over information on a user’s activities.
IPVanish is just one of the big names testing its data-handling transparency with an independent audit. Other providers doing the same include ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark.
