Fourteen Eyes
A set of intelligence-sharing arrangements between allied states, expanding from the original five to fourteen participants.
Glossary
Jurisdiction
The country whose law governs the company operating the VPN, which determines who can compel it and by what process.
Why it matters
It sets the legal floor. Every technical control a provider has can be overridden by a sufficiently determined legal system, and jurisdiction determines which legal system that is.
What most explanations leave out
Server location and company location are different things, and providers often blur them. A Panamanian company operating servers in Germany is subject to Panamanian corporate law and German law where the hardware sits. Ownership adds a third layer: a parent company in another country changes the picture again.
Related terms
Virtual server location
A server advertised as being in one country while the hardware physically sits in another.
Referenced from
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.