TOP 10 events that sparked people’s need for privacy tools in 2020

Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, and Turkey were the top three countries to register huge spikes in VPN demand

December 21, 2020. In 2020, spikes in the demand for online privacy was monumental, research based on interest in the NordVPN service shows. New legislations, government control, civil unrest, and political destabilization is being met with digital dissidence this year.

“2020 has been turbulent in many ways. Including attempts to restrict the free internet. This year alone, NordVPN received 7,254 emergency VPN access requests from journalists and activists. This is 10 times more than a year ago. Most of the requests came from Hong Kong, but we also received requests from Iran, Kashmere, Burma, and other countries with strict internet censorship and heavy surveillance. Not to mention the people who got affected by the bans and sought solutions to protect their online identities,” says Laura Tyrell, Head of PR at NordVPN.

ProPrivacy Digital Privacy Researcher Attila Tomaschek believes that VPNs have become a crucial tool for those wishing to maintain their digital freedom in a tumultuous year. “We’ve seen multiple instances this year where governments have taken action to exert control over their citizens both online and in person, typically under the guise of national security, public health or upholding morality.”

The top ten instances of VPN demand spikes this year show the scale of the spike compared to the previous day and explain its social and political background.

Countries where people, responding to events around them, rushed to protect their online presence the most this year.

Country	Date	Increase overnight	Reason
Azerbaijan	September 29	148x	Restriction of internet access
Hong Kong	May 22	120x	Introduction of the Chinese security law
Turkey	June 26	19x	Social media restrictions
Belarus	August 10	10x	Internet outages following rigged election
Brazil	September 25	7x	Implementation of the Brazilian data protection law
South Korea	January 29	3x	Five Eyes expands to include South Korea
Thailand	November 2	3x	Ban on Pornhub (and other adult sites)
Japan	November 23	1,5x	Update of data privacy and copyright laws
India	March 26	1,3x	Internet throttling by the government
US	August 7	1/3x	Announcement of a potential TikTok ban

The most significant uplift of interest in NordVPN online privacy tools was registered in Azerbaijan. After the government restricted major online communications platforms, 148 times more people rushed looking for the cure to the problem.

Immediately following Beijing’s introduction of a new security law that effectively signalled an end to the autonomy of Hong Kong, 120 times more people came looking for an online privacy tool that could help them to maintain online communication from the censoring eye.

Finally, the night after the Turkish government announced its plan to block social media platforms and VPN services, 19 times more Turks came looking for ways to circumvent the censorship.

“More and more we are seeing that informed citizens across the globe are using technology to push back. This is evidenced by the massive spikes we saw in VPN usage immediately following government efforts to censor online content or even shut down online communication entirely,” adds Attila Tomaschek.

VPNs can be used for many things, but, most importantly, VPNs are a crucial tool that citizens can use to secure their digital privacy, bypass censorship efforts, and preserve their human rights and freedom of expression in the face of government oppression.