What Does a VPN Hide? Can VPNs Be Tracked

HIPPA requires healthcare facilities to operate on private networks. These secured portals encrypt your medical information from outside parties. VPN networks allow medical professionals and patients to safely access confidential medical information untampered.

What does a VPN hide?

A virtual private network (VPN) can hide a user’s internal protocol address (IP address) and block their location and browser history. This allows them to share and receive information on public internet networks more privately. Even if you use a private browsing mode, your IP address can still be collected. A VPN can offer increased security by helping hide your online identity and encrypt your traffic.

A virtual private network (VPN) can hide a user’s internal protocol address (IP address) and block their location and browser history, allowing them to share and receive information on public internet networks more privately.

Whether you’re searching something online or communicating via social media, you’re leaving digital footprints in the form of your browsing history, cookies, and cached data.

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP), the government, and other third parties can track what you search, visit, and download.

Even if you use a private browsing mode, your IP address can still be collected.

When you download and enable a VPN prior to browsing, a VPN can offer online privacy and increased security by helping hide your online identity and encrypting your traffic. Hackers and third parties will only be able to see the IP address of the remote VPN. This prevents them from accessing your location, browser history, or the personal information you may have sent or received during that browsing session.

Here are the seven main things that a VPN hides:

1. Search history

You can clear your cookies and search history from your browser. But chances are your ISP has recorded the websites that you’ve visited. VPNs can hide your search history and other browsing activity, like search terms, links clicked, and websites visited, as well as masking your IP address.

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Can you truly remove your search history?

No. You’re removing the file references from your directories, but your operating system won’t simultaneously erase this data. It only moves the information to a special area on your Mac or PC’s hard drive.

If you use a VPN each time you browse, third parties will only be able to see the IP address of the remote VPN. This disables them from pinpointing your location, ISP and, potentially, other personal information.

2. IP address

Your IP address identifies your device on the Internet or a local network. It’s the key data that connects you to your location, ISP, and web search history.

IP addresses can share sensitive information about you that includes your physical location such as your city, state, ZIP code, and country. It can trace back to your home ISP, which could reveal your name, home address, phone number, and credit card numbers.

Instead of sending information directly from your IP address, the VPN server’s IP address is associated with your activity.

For example, if your VPN service provider has servers around the world, you could appear to be connecting to the internet from a different country.

3. Medical diagnosis and health conditions

Medical providers often operate through private client portals. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has set standards in the exchange of protected health information (PHI). This is the diagnosis, procedures, and counsel between doctors, clients and medical facilities.

HIPPA requires healthcare facilities to operate on private networks. These secured portals encrypt your medical information from outside parties. VPN networks allow medical professionals and patients to safely access confidential medical information untampered.

4. Travel accommodations

Travel and airline websites associate the information that you’re researching with your IP address. When you visit online travel booking websites multiple times to find better deals, a cookie has likely already locked into a price.

A cookie is data sent from a user’s computer to a website. They can identify your past travel searches, online profiles, all the way to your home address. Any action like clicking on a link can trigger an “event.” Marketers use analytics tracking tools to track website traffic and user behavior. It only takes a short amount of time for advertisers to bombard you with retargeting ads.

VPNs can block tracking technologies, allowing you to search travel websites anonymously and avoiding advertisers altogether.

5. Geolocation

We already mentioned that your IP address can identify your geolocation. Browsers and websites use this information to map web traffic from different cities, states, and countries.

For example, when you use Google Maps, you must enable your phone to detect your location. Websites use the same technology.

One side benefit of using a VPN is known as geo-spoofing. This means a VPN “fools” websites and other online services into thinking you’re in one location when you’re really in another.

This could provide access to geo-restricted services or help save money while doing online shopping. But remember to always check your service agreement rules and observe government laws and regulations.

6. Personally identifiable material

A VPN can hide your online identity by masking your IP address. It encrypts your location and the data you send and receive, helping protect your personal identifiable information (PII). This data can come in the form of your bank information, as well as Social Security and driver’s license numbers. If a hacker gains access to your computer, your PII is could be vulnerable via audio files, messages, and passwords.

Even secure websites can become vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Using a VPN network can increase your protection when you go online, from hackers and cyber thieves.

7. Torrenting

BitTorrents (torrents) are metadata files and folders that are shared and downloaded between users on a network. This gives users access to movies, music, and other forms of media content.

Though torrenting isn’t illegal, downloading copyrighted material like movies or songs is a violation. Since your ISP can track your activity, so can the government. Using a torrenting service without a VPN can sometimes lead to warning letters or even hefty fines from the government.

Even if performed legally, torrenting can be dangerous. Downloading unknown files can result in you downloading malware. These viruses can infect your computer and corrupt your files. VPNs can prevent online peers from seeing your IP address, which could help prevent hackers from singling you out.

How to choose a VPN

When choosing a VPN, consider your needs for the device. User-friendliness, speed, secure encryption, and price are all important factors to examine. You also want reliable customer service, should anything out of the ordinary occur.

Consider using a secure VPN network that provides powerful protection and is capable of connecting other devices in your home. Research online reviews, but be careful of sites that promote affiliate websites. You can also talk to your tech-savvy friends and get their insight on recommended products.

Most importantly, when purchasing a VPN, it’s best to buy from a software company that you trust. So, no matter where you are, you can search the internet knowing that your connections are safer.

Related VPN Articles

• What is a VPN?
• How does a VPN work?
• How secure is a VPN? What makes a safe VPN?
• 10 benefits of VPN you might not know about
• Are free VPNs safe? 7 things to know before using free VPNs
• What is a no-log VPN?
• How to protect your online privacy with a VPN
• Do I need a VPN at home?
• Setting up a VPN on your router
• Are VPNs legal or illegal?
• VPN leaks: What they are and how to test your VPN security
• VPN tunnel: What is it and how does it work?
• Proxy vs. VPN: 4 differences you should know
• How to delete your search history and maintain privacy with a virtual private network (VPN)
• VPN for smartphones
• VPN for Android
• VPN For Windows
• VPN for Mac

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What Does a VPN Hide? Can VPNs Be Tracked?

Simon Migliano is a recognized world expert in VPNs. He’s tested hundreds of VPN services and his research has featured on the BBC, The New York Times and more.

1. What is a VPN?
2. What Does a VPN Hide?

Our Verdict

A VPN encrypts and hides all of the web traffic leaving your device. It hides your IP address and location from the websites you visit, and it conceals your web browsing history, downloads, and streaming activity from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and router. A VPN also protects you against hackers, police surveillance, and employee tracking. Most VPNs do not hide your GPS location or MAC address, and governments and advertisers can still track your browsing activity, even with a VPN on.

A virtual private network (VPN) is one of the best tools you can use to protect your privacy, security, and freedom online.

A good VPN hides your downloads, searches, and browsing history from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), cybercriminals, government agencies, police forces, the websites you visit, and the apps you use. Without a VPN, each of these entities will know much more about who you are and what you do online.

What exactly a VPN hides often depends on who you’re trying to hide from. Although some websites and VPN service providers might falsely tell you otherwise, it’s important to know that a VPN won’t hide all your internet activity from everyone.

SUMMARY: A reliable and effective VPN hides the following information:

• Your personal IP address
• Your geographic location
• The websites you visit
• The apps you use
• How long you spend on websites and apps
• The files you download or upload
• Torrenting and P2P activity
• The fact you’re using a VPN

However, different entities have access to different pieces of this information. For example, your ISP won’t see your browsing history or any of your download activity when you use a VPN, but it knows your real IP address and your geographic location. That’s because your ISP is responsible for giving you the IP address in the first place, so you can’t hide it from them.

And unless you use a VPN with advanced obfuscation technology, your ISP will also be able to see that you’re using a VPN.

Here’s a table summarizing exactly what a VPN hides and from who:

Data Type	Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)	The Websites & Apps You Use	Governments & Police	Hackers (on Public WiFi)	Employers & Other WiFi Admins
Your IP Address	No	Yes	Sometimes	No	No
Your Physical Location	No	Yes, with IP-based geolocation	Sometimes	No	No
Websites/Apps You Visit	Yes	No	Mostly	Yes	Yes (but be careful)
Time Spent on Websites/Apps	Yes	No	Mostly	Yes	Yes, with obfuscation (but be careful)
Search History	Yes	Yes	Mostly	Yes	Yes, with obfuscation (but be careful)
Downloads	Yes	No	Mostly	Yes	Yes, with obfuscation (but be careful)
Torrenting	Yes, with obfuscation	Yes, with Static IP	Yes, with obfuscation	No	Yes, with obfuscation (but be careful)

It’s worth emphasizing that using a VPN does not make you completely anonymous.

Even though a VPN can hide some of your online identity and activity, it is still technically possible for governments, police, advertisers, and hackers to track your what you do when you use a VPN.

To learn more about this, and how best to protect yourself, skip to our section on whether VPNs can be tracked.

EXPERT ADVICE: If you want to be more anonymous online, we recommend subscribing to a no-logs VPN service with an excellent security and privacy record. Our current top choice is Private Internet Access, which you can try for 30 days risk-free.