Germany too? No More Open Hotspots in the EU? Use Epic to Avoid Surveillance and Access Blocked Websites

Et tu Germany? The German Intelligence Agency (BND) is forcing data centers in Germany to allow it to tap their data. Congratulations to the large and courageous data center DE-CIX who is challenging BND’s widespread surveillance as illegal under German law. If you’re in Germany using Epic, make sure you keep the encrypted proxy on so that your data is safe and protected.

Read more: IXP Sues German Government over Surveillance

In a new ruling, the EU is now forcing anyone or any cafe or other firm offering a WiFi connection or running a Hotspot to obtain personal identifying information of everyone using it so that no one accesses the internet “anonymously”. This was in response to a lawsuit by Sony against a cafe in which a patron downloaded a movie illegally. When someone stabs someone to death, we don’t ban all knives. When someone is killed by a gun in the United States and there are tens of thousands dying every year, we don’t ban all guns, heck we don’t even ban semi-automatic guns (!!). If there is some abuse of a free and open internet, it doesn’t mean everyone accessing the internet must add a personal signature to every search query and website visited. Privacy is essential to freedom and this most certainly includes our online freedom to explore and share that’s made the internet so powerful. If you look at piracy, what’s significantly diminished piracy is not more lawsuits and fear but legal options like Netflix which simply didn’t exist before. Media companies especially giants like Sony would be best served to focus on providing great services not manipulating government power to protect what they may see as their short-term interests.

Read more: EU Ends Anonymous WiFi Hotspots

With countries from the United States to Russia to Saudi Arabia to India to the United Kingdom to France facing significant to pervasive internet surveillance and censorship, the free and open internet as we know is it under threat. Epic is one of only three companies in the world with a proven commitment to online privacy — we protected our users’ privacy even at the expense of our revenues being cut off. Epic provides everyone in the world free and private access to the internet through our browser with a built-in encrypted proxy that lets you access websites blocked in your country. Epic users, we’re hundreds of thousands strong and growing everyday!