Use VPN and face fines of up to $545,000

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (right) has issued new federal laws banning the use of VPNs in the country's Reuters
The President of the United Arab Emirates has issued a series of new federal laws
relating to IT crimes, including a regulation that forbids anyone in the UAE from making use of virtual private networks to secure their web traffic from prying eyes.

The new law states that anyone who uses a VPN or proxy server can be imprisoned and fined between $136,000-$545,000 if they are found to use VPNs fraudulently.

Previously, the law was restricted to prosecuting people who used VPNs as part of an internet crime, but UK-based VPN and privacy advocate Private Internet Access says that the law has now changed to enable police in the UAE to go after anyone who uses VPNs to access blocked services, which is considered to be fraudulent use of an IP address.

VPNs are services that allow users anywhere in the world to connect to a private network on the internet. These are useful for online privacy, as they hide the user's actual location.

Credit: IB Times UK