UAE: How many VPN apps were downloaded in 2023? – News

According to Article 10 of the country’s cyber law, people who abuse VPNs can face prison terms and fines between Dh500,000 and Dh2 million.

Use of virtual private networks (VPNs) was the highest in the UAE last year, despite a drop of more than 16 percent, according to new findings.

The adoption rate was 43.18 percent in the UAE last year, followed by Qatar (39.2 percent), Singapore (37.11 percent), Saudi Arabia (27 percent) and Oman (26.54 percent), it found. from Digital Adoption research. , citing data from Atlas VPN.

The adoption rate shows what percentage of the country’s population downloaded VPN services in 2022.

Using a VPN in the UAE is not illegal as long as it is used in accordance with the guidelines of the UAE government and the Telecommunications and Digital Government Authority (TDRA).

However, using VPNs for illegal purposes or to commit crimes is a serious offense under the UAE Anti-Gossip and Cybercrime Legislative Decree 2021 (34).

It is also illegal to use a VPN to hide your IP address to access websites/calling apps/gaming apps blocked by the UAE government.

Under Article 10 of the UAE Cyber ​​Law, people abusing VPNs can be jailed and fined between Dh500,000 and Dh2 million.

VPN usage increased dramatically in the UAE and GCC during the year of the pandemic, but has declined over the past few years.

The study showed that the adoption rate dropped from 61.6 percent in 2020 to 59.5 percent in 2021 and 43.2 percent last year.

A total of 4.27 million VPN apps were downloaded in the UAE in 2022, up from 4.88 million the previous year and 6.1 million in 2022.

ExpressVPN is the most searched for service. It was far ahead of the competition, bringing in 28.2 percent of all searches. In second place is NordVPN, which brought in less than half of the search share, nearly nine percent.