Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: US

Private Internet Access: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Private Internet Access (PIA) is a subscription VPN service that encrypts traffic between a device and PIA's servers. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, together with Chrome and Firefox extensions and router support. The service uses WireGuard and OpenVPN and offers split tunnelling, multi-hop routing, a kill switch on mobile, the MACE blocker for ads, trackers and malicious sites, and optional dedicated IP addresses. The provider states that it keeps no user logs; in 2022 Deloitte examined its server configurations.

The data controller, PIA Private Internet Access, Inc., is based in Denver, Colorado, and primarily stores customer information in the United States. Since November 2019 the service has been owned by Kape Technologies in London, which also owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost and ZenMate. The desktop and Android apps are published under GPLv3 and the iOS app under the MIT licence, so the code can be inspected. For a European organisation, this is a US-based provider with a UK parent, and data is transferred to the United States.

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Sovereignty score

49 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (US)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-390
Self-hostable: encryption keys under your own control
Freedom from lock-in SOV-680
Open source: low switching costs
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-665
Source code auditable, forkable and self-hostable

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked July 2, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company	GBVerified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	USVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Hosting signal	CLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	privateinternetaccess.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Private Internet Access

The European alternatives to Private Internet Access come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

21 European VPN vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Private Internet Access

Private Internet Access is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model. The ultimate owner is based in GB. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Private Internet Access hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Private Internet Access is open source. You can audit the source code, self-host the software and keep the encryption keys under your own control. Switching is easier because data and software are not tied to a single party.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Private Internet Access together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Private Internet Access?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Private Internet Access include NordVPN, Surfshark and ProtonVPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Private Internet Access?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Private Internet Access include Mullvad VPN and NymVPN. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Private Internet Access GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Private Internet Access is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on July 2, 2026.

Sources

This record was checked via the vendor's website and legal notice during the full audit of June and July 2026. Source links have been recorded per record since 20 September 2026.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

Report a vulnerability: privateinternetaccess.com/blog/pia-bug-bounty/
security.txt: privateinternetaccess.com/.well-known/security.txt

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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