Servers in country
Providers with exit locations in Rwanda: a server here gives you an address in the country. The register’s table records no mandate for VPN operators here; the briefing below sets out what the law asks of providers.
Only a few providers publish an exit here.
Providers with exit locations in a country — a fact about a network, kept deliberately apart from where the company is registered. Only providers whose country list has a source appear: a provider that publishes nothing simply does not show up, which is a criterion already in the data rather than an editorial one.
Rwanda’s interception law makes no court the gatekeeper: warrants come from a National Prosecutor designated by the Minister of Justice, and the state may intercept without going through any operator. A 2018 cybercrime law adds preservation and disclosure orders and prison terms for publishing rumours by computer.
Law No 60/2013 on the interception of communications requires a communication service provider, any company providing a postal or telecommunications service, to keep its systems technically capable of supporting interception at all times on request (art. 7). Law No 60/2018 on cybercrime requires a provider that knows its system is used for an offence to report it and to preserve information on the communication’s origin, destination, route, time, date, size and duration (art. 5).
The prosecution authority may order anyone holding electronic traffic data to disclose or record it for a specified period (art. 13), and may require a computer to be preserved for thirty days, extendable once (art. 12). Neither law sets a general retention period. Whether a VPN operator is a communication service provider under the 2013 law is not established.
Under article 6 of the cybercrime law, a service provider informed by security organs or the cybersecurity organ of illegal or harmful information or activity must remove the information, suspend or end services in respect of it, and give investigators the information they ask for. Establishing, publishing or using a site for a terrorist group (art. 41), for human trafficking (art. 42) or for trafficking in drugs (art. 43) is a separate offence.
Article 39 punishes knowingly publishing through a computer rumours that may incite fear, insurrection or violence among the population or make a person lose credibility: three to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of FRW 1,000,000 to 3,000,000. Article 38 punishes publishing an indecent message by computer with six months to two years and a fine of FRW 1,000,000 to 2,000,000; three to five years if it is untrue or directed at a child.
For identification, the prosecution authority may order disclosure of stored data (art. 11), and a court may compel a holder who will not cooperate (art. 14).
Under Law No 60/2013 an interception warrant is issued by a National Prosecutor designated by the Minister in charge of Justice, not by a court; in urgent cases it may be given verbally and written within 24 hours (art. 9). The law also provides for warrants to intercept without recourse to a communication service provider (art. 10). Inspectors appointed by presidential order monitor those authorised to intercept (art. 12).
In July 2021 Amnesty International reported that Rwandan authorities had selected more than 3,500 phone numbers of activists, journalists, political opponents, foreign politicians and diplomats since 2016 as potential targets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware; the government has denied using it. The order of the rows is the security score, and a server’s location is not a recommendation.
Rwanda
Only a provider that publishes a country list appears here at all — 41 of the 77 on file. The other 27 are not missing research: they publish no list, and U02_server_countries is unknown for them rather than filled from the number their marketing claims.
A provider that says “100+ countries” and enumerates none gets no page on any of them, and the count printed on its own record is the length of the list, never the claim. With 41 providers behind 180 countries, the long tail of these pages carries one or two rows.
More countries
Coverage147countries
Paying monthly$9.99monthly
Paying yearly$53.88yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices10at once
Security
Usability
Coverage168countries
Paying monthly$11.99monthly
Paying yearly$47.84yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices5at once
Security
Usability
