A Finnish security company that had VPN logs seized as part of a criminal investigation has been told the seizure was illegal and the logs will now be destroyed. In January 2019, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation contacted F-Secure to request connection data to its FREEDOME VPN. The newspapers were needed for a "serious crime" that was being investigated by German prosecutors. However, following the delivery of the records, F-Secure requested the cancellation of the seizure and destruction of the acquired data. F-Secure argued that the collected data should be considered confidential and, more importantly, should only relate to the suspect in the criminal case. The Finnish researchers took more data than was strictly necessary.
Decision annulled
In May of last year, a district court ruled in favor of F-Secure, agreeing that data entry was coercive. For Finnish internet users concerned about the data stored by VPN providers, the court hearing also provided some clarity. FREEDOME's logs contained clients' IP addresses, device IDs, and the start and end times of their VPN connection, but did not record the sites visited. However, it may still have been possible to gather useful evidence about the suspect in this particular case by combining this information with data usage logs. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation disagreed with the district court's decision ordering the destruction of the data and appealed, but ultimately failed. Although the records have now been destroyed, the fact that the records were initially seized should serve as a reminder that using a VPN is not a fail-safe method of avoiding the clutches of law enforcement. Via Torrent Freak