Servers in country
Providers with exit locations in Zimbabwe: 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.
In Zimbabwe interception warrants are issued by a government minister rather than a judge, and every telecommunications provider must be built to be intercepted at its own cost. In January 2019 the High Court set aside an internet shutdown directive given under that statute, without deciding whether the statute is constitutional.
The Interception of Communications Act [Chapter 11:20] requires a provider of a postal or telecommunications service to keep its systems able to support interception at all times, install the equipment, supply call-related information in real time and give an interface to the state monitoring centre (s. 9). Failure is punishable by a fine or up to three years. A telecommunication service provider must also acquire the needed devices at its own expense (s. 12).
Before contracting, a provider must record the customer’s name, addresses and identity number and keep the record (s. 10). It must store call-related information under a directive of the Postal and Telecommunications Authority; the Act itself sets no period. The Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07] moved the monitoring centre into the Office of the President. Whether a VPN operator is a telecommunication service provider under these Acts is not established.
The Cyber and Data Protection Act makes it an offence, through a computer or information system, to produce, offer, distribute or transmit racist or xenophobic material, or to use language that lowers the reputation or feelings of people on grounds listed in section 56(3) of the Constitution (s. 164F, up to ten years). Child sexual abuse material is a separate offence (s. 165A).
The same Act punishes sending a data message with intent to incite violence or damage to property (s. 164) or threatening harm (s. 164A), each by up to five years. Cyber-bullying, meaning posting or sending material with intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, bully or humiliate, carries up to ten (s. 164B). Knowingly distributing false data about an identifiable person with intent to cause psychological or economic harm carries up to five (s. 164C).
Identification runs through providers: customer identity numbers are recorded at contract, and a warrant can order a provider to meet the technical requirements set to facilitate interception (Interception of Communications Act ss. 7, 10).
A warrant is issued by the Minister, on an application from the heads of defence intelligence, the President’s national-security department, the Police or the Revenue Authority.
The application goes first to a committee that advises the Minister, and a warrant lasts up to three months and is renewable for further periods of up to three months. The second and later renewals can fall to the Administrative Court on an ex parte application (ss. 5–7).
In January 2019 Justice Tagu of the High Court set aside directives restricting internet access, issued under the Act by the Minister of State for National Security, because the President had not delegated that authority. The court did not decide the argument that interception warrants should not be a minister’s decision. The order of the rows is the security score, and a server’s location is not a recommendation.
Zimbabwe
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
