Don't use a VPN in United Arab Emirates – unless you wanna risk jail and a $545,000 fine

A royal edict from the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may have effectively made it illegal for anyone in the country to use a VPN or secure proxy service.

Those caught could face jail time and fines of between 500,000 and 2,000,000 UAE dirham (US$136,130 and $544,521). The change was announced this week by the UAE President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan in a proclamation that amended federal laws.

The wording is ambiguous and technologically illiterate. Essentially, it seems, you are not allowed to use systems that hide the fact that you're committing a crime or covering one up. If you're routing your network traffic through a secure VPN or proxy server, you could be evading the eyes of the state while breaking a law, and that's now a big no-no.

You could claim you were using the VPN or proxy for legit reasons, and that no criminal activity was being committed or concealed, but since your packets were encrypted, you may have a hard time proving your innocence.

The tweaked law now reads as follows:

Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery, shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than Dhs 500,000 and not exceeding Dhs 2,000,000, or either of these two penalties.

Less than 15 per cent of the desert kingdom's inhabitants are locals, with the rest of the population made up of expatriates, many of whom want to access private corporate networks and the internet at large without being limited by the filtering systems the country has set up. The state telco blocks anything seen as being against UAE values, any Israeli domains, and pornography sites, as well as many VoIP services for calling home.

There are two state-sanctioned VoIP services, Etisalat and Du, but they are relatively expensive. Skype was outlawed in the kingdom, but that ban was lifted in April after Microsoft and business leaders complained that the blockade was discouraging businesses from coming to the country.

In the meantime, if you're visiting the UAE, using a VPN or proxy server may be problematic. The new law is now in effect, and you may get a knock on the door by the police if you try using one of those services. ®