As the virtual private network (VPN) usage grows in countries like India and South Asia to have a more secure and private Internet browsing experience, a new report has warned that Chinese government have access to massive sets of data like private emails, messenger conversations and personal records, as most of the VPNs being used are Chinese-owned, a new report has warned.

According to Strike Source, approximately 20 per cent of the world's global population are "being either directly or potentially set up for the Chinese government to collect all of their private data".

There are 4.57 billion Internet users in the world and 31 per cent of those use a VPN network.

"Upon reviewing a sample size of 30 popular VPNs, we can estimate that approximately 62 per cent of those are secretly Chinese-owned VPNs currently installed on 878,354,000 consumer user devices," the nonpartisan news and analysis website said in its report, quoting information from Tom Jackson, a cybersecurity expert.

"VPN data is rich with information, and when paired with quantum computers decrypting the data traveling within those channels, we are vulnerable to attack from many different angles," Jackson said.

"If the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has access to 20 per cent of the data going through the world's VPNs generally, they should be expected to be using that data for a massive global spying operation that could translate into winning wars, shifting global power, and aiding the rise of an empire," the expert warned.

In India, approximately 129 million people use VPN to access the internet and we do not know how many of those now have data that has been compromised.

In 2020, 29 per cent of Americans reported using a VPN for personal use (up from 11 per cent in 2019).

"It means that 39 million Americans may be sharing personal or otherwise secret data with China".

Earlier this year, a number of VPN company databases were breached and leaked. The total amount of log data leaked exceeds one terabyte.

(IANS)