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Update: After publication, on April 2, 2025, we received a response from Apple.
We made some edits to the copy to reflect this.
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Millions of free VPN users in America have sent their data to China without knowing it.
Overall, experts found 20 apps had undisclosed Chinese ownership and had been downloaded more than 70 million times.
This indicates that the real number of impacted users is likely to be even higher.
That’s because providers can potentially read the internet traffic rerouted via their servers.
Worse still, understanding the real ownership behind these free VPN applications isn’t easy.
TTP found that none of the 20 China-linked services disclosed this crucial information.
The team was able to determine this by piecing together several corporate documents.
The Shanghai-based firm has been previously accused of having ties with the Chinese military.
For this, theUS sanctionedthe company on national security grounds in June 2020.
Looks like I was right & they’re connected to blacklisted Chinese security firm Qihoo 360.
Turbo VPN even obtainedGoogle’s verified badge, a label that helps users easily identify secure and trustworthy services.
Which are the China-linked free VPNs?
TTP experts flagged a total of 20 free VPN apps with shady Chinese ownership.
