Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, 14 Eyes: Why VPN Jurisdiction Matters

Published 31 January 2026 · by VPN Free UK

When choosing a VPN, most people focus on speed, server count, and price. But one of the most important factors for genuine privacy is often overlooked: jurisdiction. Where a VPN company is legally registered determines which government surveillance laws apply to it, and whether your browsing data could be shared with intelligence agencies around the world. To understand why this matters, you need to know about the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes alliances.

What Are Intelligence-Sharing Alliances?

Intelligence-sharing alliances are agreements between national governments to collect and share mass surveillance data with one another. These arrangements date back to the aftermath of World War II, when the United States and the United Kingdom signed the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. Over the decades, the alliance expanded to include other anglophone nations, and later broadened further into wider European partnerships.

The significance for VPN users is straightforward: if your VPN provider is headquartered in a country that belongs to one of these alliances, the government of that country can compel the provider to hand over user data. Even if the VPN company itself does not keep logs, it could be forced to begin logging or to install monitoring infrastructure. Worse still, that data can then be shared freely with every other member of the alliance.

Five Eyes: The Core Alliance

The Five Eyes (often abbreviated as FVEY) is the tightest and most powerful surveillance partnership in the world. Its five members are:

  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • New Zealand

These five governments share virtually all signals intelligence with one another. Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed the staggering extent of this cooperation, including programmes like PRISM (US) and Tempora (UK) that harvested data from undersea cables and tech platforms on an industrial scale. For UK residents, this is particularly relevant because the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 — widely dubbed the “Snoopers’ Charter” — gives GCHQ broad legal authority to collect internet connection records and to require companies to assist with data interception.

Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes: The Wider Rings

The Nine Eyes alliance adds four more countries to the core five:

  • Denmark
  • France
  • Netherlands
  • Norway

The 14 Eyes alliance (formally known as SIGINT Seniors Europe, or SSEUR) expands the group further with an additional five nations:

  • Germany
  • Belgium
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • Sweden

While the Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes members do not enjoy the same depth of intelligence sharing as the core Five Eyes, they still participate in coordinated surveillance and data exchange programmes. A VPN headquartered in any of these 14 countries is potentially subject to data requests that can be fulfilled and forwarded to allied governments with little or no judicial oversight.

Best VPN Jurisdictions for Privacy

Privacy-focused VPN providers deliberately incorporate outside these alliances. The most respected jurisdictions in the VPN industry include:

  • Panama — Panama has no mandatory data-retention laws and is not party to any surveillance alliance. NordVPN is headquartered here, which is one reason it consistently ranks among the most trusted providers for privacy.
  • Switzerland — Although Switzerland cooperates with EU nations on certain legal matters, its strong constitutional privacy protections and strict data-handling laws make it an excellent jurisdiction. Proton VPN, developed by the team behind the encrypted email service ProtonMail, benefits from these protections.
  • British Virgin Islands (BVI) — A self-governing British Overseas Territory, the BVI has no data-retention legislation and has historically resisted requests to hand over user data. ExpressVPN operates from this jurisdiction.
  • Romania — Romania struck down the EU Data Retention Directive as unconstitutional, twice. It has no mandatory data-retention law, making it a strong choice for privacy. CyberGhost is based here.
  • Sweden (with caveats) — While Sweden is a 14 Eyes member, Mullvad VPN operates from Sweden and mitigates the risk through a strict no-logs policy verified by independent audits. Mullvad does not even require an email address to sign up, and accepts anonymous cash payments.

Practical Recommendations for UK Users

If you are based in the United Kingdom, your internet activity is subject to some of the most extensive lawful surveillance in the democratic world. The Investigatory Powers Act allows your ISP to store a record of every website you visit for 12 months. Using a VPN headquartered within the Five Eyes does not fully resolve this problem, because the provider could still be compelled to cooperate.

For the strongest protection, choose a VPN based outside the 14 Eyes entirely. Providers like NordVPN (Panama) and Proton VPN (Switzerland) combine favourable jurisdictions with independently audited no-logs policies, giving you two layers of assurance. If you value extreme anonymity, Mullvad is worth considering despite its Swedish base, thanks to its unique approach to anonymous accounts.

Jurisdiction is not the only factor, of course. You should also consider the provider’s logging policy, audit history, server infrastructure, and the encryption protocols it supports. But jurisdiction sets the legal backdrop against which all of those features operate. A no-logs policy means far less if a court in a Five Eyes country can issue a secret order requiring the provider to start logging tomorrow.

To compare providers side by side and see how they stack up across privacy, speed, and value, visit our VPN comparison tool. Making an informed choice starts with understanding the landscape — and now you know exactly why jurisdiction should be at the top of your checklist.