The best privacy laws in the world: These three VPNs are on sale for a limited time

Whether you're a VPN veteran or have just started to look into the world of VPNs because of their impressive Black Friday discounts, you probably know that there are many factors to consider when choosing a VPN.

You need to consider factors like speed, unblocking capabilities, the strength of its encryption protocols, and whether its no-log policy has been audited by an independent third party. However, while these are all important, you absolutely shouldn't forget to also assess the jurisdiction the company running the VPN is based in.

The jurisdiction refers to the country where a VPN is legally based and defines the laws the company must follow when it comes to factors like data retention obligations, government oversight, and surveillance regulations.

That's exactly the reason why some of the very best VPN providers have decided to base their VPN operations in countries outside the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and Fourteen Eyes alliances, which are notorious for their surveillance overreach.

Likewise, you shouldn't be picking a VPN (or any other security software for that matter) that operates under the laws of authoritarian nations like China, where companies are subjected to strict data retention and sharing obligations.

Which VPN jurisdictions protect privacy?

Currently, the best privacy jurisdictions for VPNs include Panama and Switzerland. Both countries boast strong privacy laws, zero mandatory data retention regulations, and they sit outside the most intensive nation-state surveillance agreements.

Even better: three top-tier VPNs based in these data havens are discounted as part of this year's Black Friday sales.

Best Panama-based VPN:

NordVPN Basic: $3.39 $2.99/month + 3 months free
While its parent company is in Europe, NordVPN operates under the jurisdiction of Panama, where there is no mandatory data retention regulations. So, you can be sure that NordVPN will never be forced to reveal your data.

For Black Friday, NordVPN has already knocked the price down across all of its 2-year plans. For us, the best bargain is NordVPN Basic which is just $2.99 per month . Here's what you get with NordVPN Basic:

🔒 Panama data protection reassurance
🌍 Servers in over 126 countries
💻 Connect from 10 devices at the same time
🚫 Blocks ads, malicious domains, and scams

View Deal

Best Swiss VPNs:

Black Friday Deal

Proton VPN: (was $3.59) just $2.49 a month
Proton is based in Switzerland, a country globally recognized for its strongest-in-class data protection laws. Crucially, unlike its neighbors, Switzerland is not part of any intelligence-sharing alliances

<p> <br />Proton VPN's early Black Friday deal reduces its price by 75%, which means you can get all the service's top-notch security and censorship circumvention features for the equivalent of<strong> $2.49 a month. Here's all you get:<p><p><p><p><strong>🔒Swiss-grade privacy reassurances <br /><strong>🌍Servers in 127 countries<br /><strong>💻 Connect from 10 devices at the same time<br /><strong>✅ Advanced security and unblocking features

View Deal

PrivadoVPN – $1.11 per month + antivirus for FREE!
PrivadoVPN is also based in Switzerland. This means that all of your data is protected by strong laws and isn't at risk of being exchanged as part of intelligence-sharing agreements.

<p><p><p>PrivadoVPN's Black Friday deal also happens to be pretty impressive this year. A 2-year plan comes with 3 extra months of coverage and antivirus protection, both included at no extra cost. All that for just $30 up front ($1.11 per month). Here's all you get:<p><p><p><p><strong>🔒Swiss-grade privacy reassurances <br /><strong>🌍Servers in 49 countries<br /><strong>💻 Connect from 10 devices at the same time<br /><strong>✅ Threat protection and parental controls

View Deal

Looking ahead

It's worth noting that Switzerland is currently considering expanding its surveillance law in ways that could seriously affect tech providers' obligations, including VPNs.

Specifically, the amendment seeks to expand surveillance obligations that are now reserved for telecom networks and internet service providers (ISPs), to target so-called "derived service providers." This categorization would include any online service with a turnover of $100 million or more than 5,000 active users.

This means virtual private networks (VPNs), messaging apps, cloud services, and social network companies may have to start complying with surveillance requirements and retain users' data.

The amendment could also mean VPN companies will be required to collect specific metadata so that authorities could use these details to retrospectively identify people's internet connections.

Lawmakers ran a public consultation until May 6, 2025, and they are now expected to make a decision based on the feedback received.

The vast majority of Swiss privacy tech companies have strongly criticized the amendment. Proton VPN and NymVPN have also confirmed to TechRadar that they are ready to leave Switzerland if the law passes. Given this "legal uncertainty," Proton has already started to make some changes, with its private AI chatbot Lumo being the first product to move home.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!