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Government employees barred from using VPN and private cloud services

The Union government has banned its employees from using third-party and non-government cloud platforms, such as Google Drive and Dropbox. Government employees have also been restricted from using Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. Recently, some of the popular VPN service providers, like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, had announced to remove networks from India. The move comes following the announcement of the country’s new VPN policy. 

According to several media reports, the order has been passed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and circulated to all ministries and departments. The authorities have asked all government employees to comply with the directive. The order is said to have been approved by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY). 

The move comes into effect just a few weeks after the government had announced the new VPN policy that requires VPN service providers and data centre companies to store user data for up to five years. The new policy goes against the core idea of VPNs. 

In addition to VPNs and cloud services, the government has also directed employees from using “unauthorised remote administration tools” like TeamViewer, AnyDesk and Ammyy Admin and others.  

Government employees are also asked not to use any “external email services for official communication” and conduct “sensitive internal meetings and discussions” using “unauthorised third-party video conferencing or collaboration tools.”

Additionally, the government has directed its employees not to use “any external mobile app-based scanner services” for “scanning internal government documents”. To recall, one of the most popular document scanner apps, CamScanner, was banned in India, alongside TikTok and PUBG Mobile in 2020. 

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