Leading VPN provider publishes transparency report – but what does it mean?

As another quarter of the year comes to a close, many companies have been hard at work putting together reports that reflect their performance that quarter. One of these companies is Private Internet Access (PIA), one of the best VPN providers on the market.

PIA's report isn't concerned with profit or growth, however – instead, the VPN provider has published its Q2 transparency report.

You may be wondering what a transparency report entails – in this article, we'll explore exactly what the transparency report means and why it's important for PIA to release it.

What is PIA's transparency report?

Published every quarter, PIA's transparency report is an ongoing record of all the times they have not surrendered or leaked their users' data. In short - it's the VPN provider putting their money where their mouth is and definitively proving that when they say your data is safe, it truly is.

Each quarterly transparency report is a list of all the times data has been requested from them. Ways the information can be requested include:

• Court orders
• Subpoenas
• Warrants
• Foreign notices
• State notices
• Federal notices
• Foreign and informal requests

PIA have also helpfully provided a guide to exactly what these information requests mean.

What does the PIA transparency report mean?

In its Q2 transparency report, PIA released the following table:

Put simply, it means that PIA has been truthful about its no-logs policy , one of the most important things to look for in a good VPN. It also means that it's dedicated to no releasing any of its users' information, so you can use it very much safe in the knowledge that your data will not be snooped on.

In more detail, it means that despite receiving 27 subpoenas, three warrants, 30 foreign notices, 13 state notices, 17 federal notices and 30 foreign and informal requests (a whopping 120 requests in total!), PIA has not released any data logs. This is because, thanks to its strict no-logs policy, there simply are no logs to produce.