Start VPN Privacy Policy
Start VPN is committed to protecting your privacy. We want you to understand what information we collect, what we don’t collect, and how we collect, use, and store information.We do not collect logs of your activity, including no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries. We also never store connection logs, meaning no logs of your IP address, your outgoing VPN IP address, connection timestamp, or session duration.
Our guiding principle toward data collection is to collect only the minimal data required to operate a world-class VPN service at scale. We designed our systems to not have sensitive data about our customers; even when compelled, we cannot provide data that we do not possess.
This privacy policy will help you understand how Start (“Start VPN,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) collects, uses, and stores information.
Learn more about the independent audit report of our privacy protections.
Table of contents
General Information
Personal Information
Aggregate Apps and VPN Connection Summary Statistics
Anonymous VPN Connection Diagnostics and Crash Reports (can be turned off by the user)
Jurisdiction and Applicable Law
Storing of Information Related to Email, Live Chat, and Feedback Forms
Security Measures to Protect Your Information
Cookies
Third-Party Websites
Consent and Age Restrictions
Users in the European Union
Changes to the Privacy Policy
How to Contact Start VPN
General Information
Start VPN collects three types of information:
(i) Information related to your account (“personal information”)
This information is collected for the purpose of administering your Start VPN subscription and includes your name, email address, and payment information, which you submit on our order page when you subscribe for the Services.
(ii) Aggregate Apps and VPN connection summary statistics
Start VPN collects minimal information about usage in order to maintain excellent customer support and quality of service. The section below specifies in detail what information we collect. These statistics never include anything about what the user did with the VPN: no data about the contents or destinations of VPN traffic, no DNS queries, and no IP addresses.
(iii) (User-controlled option): Anonymous VPN connection diagnostics and crash reports
VPN connection diagnostics are anonymized and cannot be tied back to individual Start VPN users. This feature is similar to a “send bug report” option. Users can specify in the settings menu of any Start VPN App whether to send these data to us.
Personal Information
Start VPN collects personal information that you provide to us directly through the Site. We require that you provide personal information, such as an email address and payment information, in order to establish an Start VPN account, and so that we can email you, collect payments from you, and respond to support queries that you initiate. The specific information collected varies depending on the payment method you choose. To minimize the amount of personal information you submit to us, we recommend that you use Bitcoin payments when subscribing to our Service.
With some forms of payment, the Site may redirect you to the website of a third-party payment processor (namely PayPal, BitPay, or Paymentwall) to complete the transaction. To understand what personal information these processors collect and store, please refer to the respective processor's terms and privacy policy.
Start VPN uses your email address for the following reasons:- To send emails related to payment transactions.
- To provide links to our Site, including password reset emails.
- To send you updates and announcements.
- To communicate with you about your VPN services or respond to your communications.
- To send marketing information, such as Start VPN offers, surveys, invitations, and content about other matters in connection with Start VPN (“Marketing emails”). You may choose to not receive Marketing emails by following the opt-out procedure described in these emails.
Start VPN uses your personal information only for the purposes listed in this Privacy Policy, and we do not sell your personal information to third parties.
Aggregate Apps and VPN Connection Summary Statistics
We ensure that we never log browsing history, traffic destination, data content, IP addresses, or DNS queries. Therefore:
- We do not know which user ever accessed a particular website or service.
- We do not know which user was connected to the VPN at a specific time or which VPN server IP addresses they used.
- We do not know the set of original IP addresses of a user’s computer.
Should anyone try to compel Start VPN to release user information based on any of the above, we cannot supply this information because the data don’t exist.
In order to maintain excellent customer support and quality of service, Start VPN collects the following information related to your VPN usage:
Apps and Apps versions (Start VPN)
We collect information related to which Apps and Apps version(s) you have activated. Knowing your current version of the Apps allows our Support Team to troubleshoot technical issues with you.
Successful connection
We collect information about first time login date and time so that we know about the exact activation time of your pin. And this information is true for the users who purchase credentials from our resellers or from retails shops. We also collect information about whether you have successfully established a VPN connection on a particular day (but not a specific time of the day), to which VPN location (but not your assigned outgoing IP address), and from which country/ISP (but not your source IP address). This minimal information assists us in providing technical support, such as identifying connection problems, providing country-specific advice about how to best use our Service, and to enable Start VPN engineers to identify and fix network issues.
Aggregate sum of data transferred (in MB)
We collect information regarding the total sum of data transferred by a given user. Although we provide unlimited data transfer, if we notice that a single user pushes more traffic than thousands of others combined, thereby affecting the quality of service for other Start VPN users, we may contact that user for an explanation.
Summary
We collect minimal usage statistics to maintain our quality of service. We may know, for example, that our customer John had connected to our New York VPN location on Tuesday and had transferred an aggregate of 823 MB of data across a 24-hour period. John can’t be uniquely identified as responsible for any specific behavior because his usage pattern overlaps with thousands of other Start VPN customers who also connected to the same location on the same day.
We’ve engineered our systems to categorically eliminate storage of sensitive data. We may know THAT a customer has used Start VPN, but we never know HOW they have utilized our Service. We stand by our firm commitment to our customers’ privacy by not possessing any data related to a user’s online activities.
Anonymous VPN Connection Diagnostics and Crash Reports (can be turned off by the user)
With your permission, we collect anonymized analytics data used for network diagnostics. We use these data in our network operations tools to help optimize network speeds and to let us identify problems related to specific apps, VPN servers, or ISPs. The information we receive is fully anonymized and cannot be tied back to individual Start VPN users (i.e., we do not store which user sent which data, and we do not store IP addresses).
If you opt in to share this information with Start VPN, we will collect the following information:
- Diagnostic information about if and how a VPN connection attempt failed.
- Speed test data.
- Crash reports, also without any personally identifiable information. These are handled in an anonymized form by these third parties, dependent on the platform you are using Start VPN on:
- iOS: Firebase Crashlytics, owned by Google, and Apple. See Apple’s Privacy Policy Firebase’s Privacy and Security documentation. disable Apple’s crash reporting in iOS settings as described here. Please note that if it doesn't display on your moble means its not allowed for your mobile
- Android: Google Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics, owned by Google. See Google Analytics’s Terms of Service and Firebase’s Privacy and Security documentation.
Upon activation of any Start VPN App, you will be asked if you would like to share these data. You can start or stop sharing these diagnostic data at any time in the App’s settings menu. On iOS, Apple’s crash reporting can be turned off in iOS settings.
Jurisdiction and Applicable Law
Start VPN’s core mission is to keep your information private. We are not at all provoking any of its user to use the app for any illegal activites. Customers are using this software on his or her own liabilites. You should always abide by the law of the country you are residing
Storing of Information Related to Email, Live Chat, and Feedback Forms
Start VPN keeps records of any correspondence, questions, complaints, or compliments you submit to us through our Site or Services, along with our response. Depending on how you contact Start VPN, we may collect your email address and any additional information you provide to us. Having full correspondence records enables our staff to provide the best possible customer support experience.
We use two different third-party platforms for Email Sending: Mailchimp for emails and Facebook Messenger for Live Chat. When you correspond with us using these platforms, your correspondence records, including your name and email address, are stored in their systems. They utilize modern security practices and HTTPS encryption.
Security Measures to Protect Your Information
Start VPN uses best-in-class physical, procedural, and technical security with respect to our offices and information storage facilities so as to prevent any loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of information. Access to user information is restricted to staff who require such access to perform their job functions.
While we believe these systems are robust, it is important to understand that no data security measures in the world can offer 100% protection.
Servers are housed in data centers with strong security practices. None of these data centers require us to collect or store any traffic data or personal information related to your use of VPN Services. If any data center were to ask us to log such data, we would immediately cease operations with said data center and find alternative options.
Even if a government were to physically seize one of our VPN servers and manage to break its disk encryption, there would be no logs or information that would tie any individual user to a particular event, website, or behavior.
Cookies
What is Cookie?
A cookie is a small text file used to store information about your visit to the Site. Cookies let Start VPN optimize and improve the user experience of the Site by helping us deliver certain functionalities, such as website login and language settings. The cookies we use may vary over time as we continuously update and improve our Site.
Disabling cookies
You are free to change your cookie preferences at any time. You can do this in the settings panel for your browser. Depending on which browser and device you use, you may be able to control which cookies you allow, which cookies you want to block in the future, and delete cookies. For more information about these settings, please refer to the “help” section of your browser. Note that Start VPN’s Site may not work as intended if you choose to disable cookies.
Start VPN’s cookies
The cookies set by Start VPN enable us to set your language preference, attribute visitors to a marketing channel, and, once you log in, securely show you information that is specific to your account. The cookies contain a user identifier, but no directly personally identifying information such as your name or email address, and do not track any activity outside of Start VPN’s domains.
Third-party cookies
Start VPN uses third-party services such as Google Analytics and Adwords. Cookies from such services are used to collect data for statistical reports. For example, we may generate reports regarding the amount of time users spend on the Site and the number of users who visit a particular page.
Start VPN uses Google AdWords and Facebook remarketing to show advertisements on third-party websites (including Google and Facebook) to users who have visited our Site. We may show such users advertisements on a Google search results page, or on a site in the Google Display Network.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the Site. Any data collected will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Google’s privacy policy. Users may opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting the Google Advertising Opt-out Page. Users may opt out of Google Analytics by visiting the Google Analytics Opt-out Page. Users may opt out of third-party vendor use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt-out Page.
Third-Party Websites
The Site may contain links to external websites that do not fall under Start VPN’s domain. Start VPN is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such external websites.
Consent and Age Restrictions
By using the Site, Content, Apps, Software, or Services, you agree to have your information handled as described in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The Services are intended for adults aged 18 and above. If you believe your child has provided information to us, please let us know immediately.
Users in the European Union
Start VPN is committed to user privacy globally, and our existing practices reflect that through minimal collection of data and ensuring users have control over their personal information. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union (EU) requires us to outline those practices in a specific manner for users in the EU.
In line with the GDPR, we collect and process the data outlined in this Privacy Policy on one of the following bases, depending on the circumstances:
- For the purposes of fulfilling our contractual obligations to users, including:
- Providing users with the Services and Apps they have requested.
- Managing user subscriptions and processing payments.
- Providing customer support.
- For a legitimate interest associated with the operation of our business, including:
- Enhancing the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of our Site, Services, and Apps.
- Communicating with customers to provide information and seek feedback related to our Services and Apps.
- With the consent of users, which users can withdraw at any time.
You can exercise your rights under the GDPR to access, transfer, correct, delete, or object to the processing of your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Changes to the Privacy Policy
We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, without prior notice to you, consistent with applicable privacy laws and principles. Your continued use of the Site or Services constitutes your acceptance of our Privacy Policy.
How to Contact Start VPN
If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy and how we handle your information, please feel free to contact Start VPN at the following email address: