VPNs with servers in Ecuador

The Organic Intelligence Law (Registro Oficial, 4th Supplement 57, 11 June 2025) goes further. Article 51 provides that operators must give the intelligence bodies, on a justified request, historical and real-time communication and connection data, cell locations and other identifying information, for up to five years back. Article 52 lets the head of the lead intelligence entity request the retention, opening or interception of communications.

On 4 August 2025 the Constitutional Court’s admission chamber (case 86-25-IN) provisionally suspended articles 5, 13, 22, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52 and 55 pending judgment on the merits. Whether a VPN operator is an operator within these provisions is not established.

The Comprehensive Criminal Code (COIP) punishes calumny (art. 182) with six months to two years in prison, and also punishes discrimination (art. 176) and acts of hate (art. 177).

Identification of an account behind a post prosecuted under articles 176, 177 or 182 runs through interception under article 476 or, for the intelligence bodies, the data duty in article 51 of the Intelligence Law described above.

In judgment 77-16-IN/22 of 27 January 2022 the Constitutional Court read article 476 as requiring that interception be suitable, necessary and proportionate, and ordered irrelevant material destroyed ex officio under the supervision of the competent judge. It also held that judicial control must extend to an ex post review once the authorised period has ended.

The Court declared parts of the prosecution service’s interception regulation constitutional only on stated conditions. The order of the rows is the security score, and a server’s location is not a recommendation.