VPNs with servers in Iceland

Under Article 92 the police may order a company to preserve existing digital data, including traffic data, for a stated period of no more than 90 days, and companies must tell the police who is the registered user of a telephone number or IP address. Reading messages or recording conversations without a court ruling is barred. Whether these duties reach a VPN operator is not established.

Article 59(a) of the Copyright Act allows rights holders to obtain an injunction against a service provider that conveys data supplied by a user over a telecommunications network. In a ruling reported in November 2018 the Supreme Court upheld an injunction directing internet providers to make certain file-sharing sites unavailable to their customers, because the sites were hosted abroad and the injunction could not be directed at their operators.

Article 233 a of the General Penal Code punishes publicly mocking, defaming, denigrating or threatening a person or group, in words, pictures or symbols, on grounds of national or ethnic origin, colour, race, religion, disability, sex characteristics, sexual orientation or gender identity. The penalty is a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.

In a decision of 12 May 2020 the European Court of Human Rights rejected as manifestly ill-founded a complaint against a fine of ISK 100,000 imposed under this article for comments posted under an online news article in 2015 that called homosexuality “disgusting”. The registered user of an IP address can be obtained by the police from the access provider under Article 92 of the Electronic Communications Act.

The Police Monitoring Committee, an independent, self-governing administrative body, has worked since 1 January 2017 under the Police Act (No. 90/1996, as amended by Act No. 62/2016). It receives reports of alleged criminal conduct by police staff and of police methods, and it can review incidents or police practices on its own initiative when it sees reason to.

The order of the rows is the security score, and a server’s location is not a recommendation.