Political Audit: ExpressVPN

Target: ExpressVPN (consumer VPN; Express Technologies Ltd / ExpressVPN Inc; owned by Kape Technologies plc) Domain: Political (Political) Date: June 2026 Scope: ExpressVPN’s own political and communicative acts re Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian context. Kape Technologies and Teddy Sagi’s personal activity are attributed at the parent/owner level (ownership stated as fact only).

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

ExpressVPN has made no public statement on the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, or the series of near-total internet shutdowns imposed on Gaza from 27 October 2023 onwards - shutdowns documented by Access Now and multiple wire services.¹²

ExpressVPN operates a prominent “Digital Freedom” editorial track on its public blog, publishing pieces on internet censorship in Russia, China, Iran, and India.³ A site-search of expressvpn.com for the terms “Gaza” and “Palestine” returned no blog posts or editorial pieces.⁴ The company’s 2019 article “Laws that Threaten Internet Freedom Around the World” covers seven jurisdictions - New Zealand, Germany, France, Vietnam, Thailand, Russia, and Australia - with no Middle Eastern country included.⁵ The company’s “Keeping the Internet Open in Challenging Times” post (2022, addressing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) specifically offers free VPN access to journalists and organisers “in an oppressive situation” but does not name Gaza or Palestine as covered contexts.³

The contrast is evidential: ExpressVPN has produced country-specific internet-freedom commentary for at least a dozen nations, publicly condemned surveillance by Saudi Arabia (in connection with the Loujain AlHathloul case), and offered VPN access as a solidarity gesture around the Russia-Ukraine war, while remaining publicly silent on internet shutdowns in Gaza.⁶² No public evidence identifies an ExpressVPN statement acknowledging this gap.

When civil-society organisation Business & Human Rights Resource Centre contacted the parent company Kape Technologies in September 2025 about user boycott calls and concerns over the Israeli ownership nexus, Kape Technologies did not respond. ExpressVPN itself issued no separate public statement on these concerns.⁷

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

No public evidence identified that ExpressVPN operates, has operated, or maintains virtual server infrastructure inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory or Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

ExpressVPN lists its registered operating jurisdiction as the British Virgin Islands.⁸ Its server withdrawal from India (June 2022) in response to the Indian CERT data-logging directive provides a documented precedent for principled server exits: the company publicly framed the India exit as a defence of “internet freedom” against “overreaching” data-retention mandates.⁹ No comparable action or statement has been made regarding the occupied territories.

No public evidence identified that ExpressVPN has geo-blocked users in Palestinian territories, restricted service to Israeli state institutions, or made any commercial differentiation by jurisdiction within the Israel/Palestine context.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

The principal governance event in this domain is the retention of Chief Information Officer Daniel Gericke after public disclosure of his participation in the UAE’s Project Raven surveillance programme.

On 14 September 2021, the US Department of Justice unsealed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Gericke and two co-defendants. The DPA established that from 2016–2019, Gericke “provided support, direction and supervision” to build sophisticated zero-click hacking tools for UAE state intelligence targeting journalists, dissidents, and US citizens - without the required State Department export licence.¹⁰ Gericke paid a $335,000 fine and accepted employment restrictions.¹⁰

ExpressVPN published an official response on 16 September 2021 stating that Gericke had “disclosed [his prior work history] proactively and transparently with us from the start” when hired in December 2019, that the company “do not condone Project Raven,” but that Gericke’s “history and expertise made him an invaluable hire.”¹¹ The company chose to retain Gericke. Employees raised formal internal objections: in a documented internal exchange, one wrote that his past actions “go against all the things XV stands for.”¹² ExpressVPN nonetheless kept Gericke as CIO. He remained employed until July 2023, when Kape Technologies privatised and then conducted company-wide layoffs of approximately 30% of headcount; Gericke’s departure is attributed to that restructuring rather than to any disciplinary action.¹³

The decision to retain Gericke for nearly two years after the DOJ disclosure - while publicly marketing a privacy-and-no-surveillance brand - constitutes a material governance act. The UAE surveillance infrastructure he helped build targeted political dissidents including Arab journalists and activists. No public evidence identifies any ExpressVPN board-level accountability review or external governance investigation beyond the company’s own blog statements.

ExpressVPN publishes six-monthly transparency reports. The July–December 2024 report records 333 government/law-enforcement requests for user data, none resulting in data disclosure.¹⁴ The company maintains a multi-year programme of independent third-party audits (23 completed as of 2025, including KPMG, PwC, Cure53), consistently verifying no-logs compliance.¹⁵

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

ExpressVPN’s primary brand heritage is as an independent privacy company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands before its 2021 acquisition by Kape Technologies plc.⁸ The BVI jurisdiction was chosen explicitly to distance the product from intelligence-sharing alliances (the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes).⁸

Parent/owner-level ownership context (stated as structural fact only): Kape Technologies plc is a British-Israeli company; its controlling shareholder, Teddy Sagi, is an Israeli billionaire. This is a factual element of ExpressVPN’s ownership chain, not an act of ExpressVPN itself. Sagi’s personal philanthropy (including, per reporting, a reported $1 million donation in 2023 to transport Israeli soldiers) is attributable to him personally, not to ExpressVPN’s corporate conduct.⁷

ExpressVPN’s pre-acquisition brand was built around politically adversarial positioning towards surveillance states. Its most-cited real-world credential in this regard is the 2017 Turkish server seizure: Turkish police seized an ExpressVPN server while investigating the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov and found no user logs, because the company’s architecture genuinely retained none.¹⁶ This is a brand-heritage event, not a new Israel-nexus act.

No public evidence identified of any ExpressVPN partnership with Israeli state bodies, defence ministries, or intelligence agencies.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

ExpressVPN, primarily through Vice President Harold Li, participates in US-based internet-freedom policy coalitions. Li serves as founding Chair of the i2Coalition’s VPN Trust Initiative (VTI), a multi-company industry self-regulatory body promoting transparency standards and engaging with policymakers.¹⁷ The VTI’s stated focus is on consumer protection, industry standards, and VPN policy advocacy; no VTI position statements on Gaza, Palestine, or the Israel-Palestine conflict have been identified in public sources.

ExpressVPN is a financial supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fight for the Future, OpenMedia, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), and the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund.⁶¹⁸ No public evidence identified that any of these grants were conditioned on, or accompanied by, any position regarding Israel, Palestine, or Gaza.

No public evidence identified of ExpressVPN engaging in direct legislative lobbying on Israel-Palestine matters, donating to Israeli political campaigns or institutions, or participating in any Israel-adjacent financing.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

ExpressVPN operates as a consumer VPN product incorporated through Express Technologies Ltd (British Virgin Islands) and ExpressVPN Inc.⁸ Since September 2021 it has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kape Technologies plc and, after Kape’s 2023 delisting, part of Kape’s private holding structure.¹³ Kape’s portfolio also includes CyberGhost, Private Internet Access (PIA), and Intego.

The primary corporate mission, as stated publicly, is consumer privacy protection and censorship circumvention. The company’s BVI jurisdiction and no-logs architecture are designed to be structurally resistant to government data demands.⁸¹⁴

The company’s structural exposure to the Israel-Palestine nexus arises from the ownership chain - not from its stated mission or operational mandate. Its primary mission is not defence-adjacent, not Israel-facing, and not dependent on Israeli government contracts or procurement. No public evidence identified that ExpressVPN has Israeli government clients, participates in Israeli government procurement, or has licensing arrangements with Israeli state entities.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Harold Li (Vice President, ExpressVPN): Li is the most visible ExpressVPN public-facing executive in policy and advocacy contexts. He chairs the i2Coalition VPN Trust Initiative and authors pieces on internet freedom.¹⁷¹⁹ No public statement by Li on Gaza, Palestine, or Israel-Palestine has been identified.

Daniel Gericke (former CIO, departed July 2023): Gericke’s prior participation in Project Raven for UAE state intelligence is the most significant governance-political matter in ExpressVPN’s leadership record. ExpressVPN’s choice to retain him - and publicly defend the retention - is a corporate political act by ExpressVPN itself.¹¹¹²

Dan Pomerantz (Co-founder): Listed in public profiles as a co-founder of ExpressVPN and co-GM of the Kape Privacy Division. No public statements by Pomerantz on Israel-Palestine matters have been identified.

No evidence identified of any ExpressVPN executive making public statements on Gaza, the Israeli military campaign, Palestinian internet shutdowns, or related political matters.

End Notes