Police officials showed up at the offices of Mullvad VPN in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Tuesday with a search warrant, and they left without any customer data, the company revealed in a blog post.
This is the first time the police have served Mullvad with a search warrant in its 14-year history.
In a blog post on April 20, Mullvad said six officers from the Swedish Police’s National Operations Department (NOA) visited the company’s office on April 18 to seize computers containing customer data. However, the officers left empty-handed after Mullvad explained that it does not store customer data as per its policies.
The incident serves as a strong testament to Mullvad’s strict no-logs policy. It also highlights why many privacy-conscious users only choose no-log VPNs.
‘They Left Without Taking Anything’
Mullvad did not disclose anything about the police officer’s exact targets apart from the fact they tried to seize the company’s computer systems.
“We argued they had no reason to expect to find what they were looking for and any seizures would therefore be illegal under Swedish law,” Mullvad stated. “After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them consulting the prosecutor they left without taking anything and without any customer information.”
The VPN provider added that even if the police officers had taken their computer systems, they would not have access to customer data. The reason for this is Mullvad’s minimal data retention policy aimed at allowing its users to browse the web anonymously.
Mullvad maintains no network traffic logs, IP addresses, connection/disconnection data (including session durations and time stamps), DNS requests, and user bandwidth. Check out our Mullvad VPN review to learn more about its privacy policies.
Staying Anonymous Online
Mullvad launched its services in 2009 and has remained committed to supporting internet freedom. The company recently launched a privacy-first web browser which it developed in collaboration with the Tor Project.
It also regularly publishes research findings on its blog. For example, in October 2022, it uncovered that Android leaks certain information outside VPN tunnels, even with “Always-on VPN” turned on.
Interested in learning more about how to secure your privacy online? Check out our top five VPNs and best internet browsers for privacy.
