Political Audit: Surfshark

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

• Surfshark’s public “about us” materials describe its mission in terms of online privacy, security, and an open internet ¹.

• Its Emergency VPN programme offers six months of free VPN access to journalists, NGO representatives, and activists facing censorship or surveillance, without an Israel-, Palestine-, or Gaza-specific programme description on the reviewed page ².

• Surfshark’s facial-recognition research treats “Palestine” separately because it identified Israeli-government use of facial recognition to monitor Palestinians in the West Bank ³.

• That facial-recognition reference appears in a surveillance-and-privacy research methodology and does not itself state a position on military operations, settlements, civilian harm, or the wider armed conflict ³.

• No public evidence identified of a Surfshark statement specifically addressing Israel–Palestine, Gaza, the 7 October attacks, a call for peace, support for either party, or conflict-related humanitarian assistance.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

• Surfshark markets eight “Israeli VPN servers” and directs users to select Tel Aviv to obtain an Israeli IP address ⁴.

• The Israel-facing product page describes encrypted traffic and RAM-only, high-speed VPN infrastructure as features of this consumer privacy service ⁴.

• Surfshark’s general VPN location list includes Israel among its advertised server locations ⁵.

• The available Surfshark materials establish a marketed Israeli VPN endpoint but do not disclose individual server addresses, hardware ownership, hosting contracts, reseller arrangements, public-sector customers, or infrastructure in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or Israeli settlements ⁴⁵.

• DataPacket advertises dedicated-server capacity at the Bareket Data Center in Petah Tikva, but no direct record in the research memo establishes Surfshark as a DataPacket customer ⁶.

• The supplied document-scoped checks found no mention of Surfshark in the 2023 OHCHR settlement-business database, the 2024 OHCHR progress report, or the UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/59/23 ⁷⁸⁹.

• These document-scoped results do not establish absence from all UN, civil-society, procurement, regulatory, or territorial-presence records ⁷⁸⁹.

• No public evidence identified of legal, regulatory, UN-database, international-body, boycott, divestment, or sanctions scrutiny naming Surfshark for Israel- or settlement-related conduct.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

• Surfshark’s identified Israel-facing product is a VPN service rather than a physical retail product, and the reviewed Israel page does not describe product-origin labelling or settlement-origin categorisation ⁴.

• No public evidence identified of Surfshark employee discipline, employment litigation, union disputes, or enforcement of political-speech or symbol rules concerning Israel–Palestine.

• No public evidence identified of Surfshark platform moderation, app-distribution restrictions, enterprise-device deployment, or suppression of Palestine- or Gaza-related content.

• No public evidence identified of a Surfshark retail, supply-chain, sourcing, or product-labelling controversy connected to Israel–Palestine.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

• Surfshark states that it is based in the Netherlands and has offices in Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania; Warsaw, Poland; and Berlin, Germany ¹.

• Surfshark’s privacy policy identifies Surfshark B.V., based in Amsterdam, as the service provider and GDPR data controller, with Dutch Chamber of Commerce number 81967985 and VAT number NL862287339B01 ¹⁰.

• The UK Information Commissioner’s Office registers Surfshark B.V., trading as Surfshark, as a data controller at the Amsterdam address under reference ZB412009 for the period from 18 October 2022 to 17 October 2026 ¹¹.

• No public evidence identified of Israeli defence-sector origins, military heritage, state-security branding, Israeli state honours, formal Israeli governmental or academic partnerships, or state-backed public-relations sponsorship.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

• Surfshark announced in 2022 that it and Nord Security had joined under one holding-company structure while maintaining independent operations, separate infrastructure, management, and product-development plans ¹¹².

• Nord Security reported a $100 million April 2022 financing round led by Novator Ventures, with Burda Principal Investments and General Catalyst participating, and stated that Novator managing partner Birgir Már Ragnarsson would join its board ¹³.

• Nord Security reported a further $100 million financing round in September 2023 from Warburg Pincus, with Novator and Burda participating, and stated that Warburg Pincus managing director Chandler Reedy would join its board ¹⁴.

• The published financing announcements do not disclose equity percentages, voting rights, board tenure, continuing board status, or evidence that any named investor holds a controlling interest ¹³¹⁴.

• No public evidence identified of Surfshark contracts, donations, sponsorships, lobbying, crisis asset mobilisation, or other support involving the Israeli government, IDF, Ministry of Defense, settlement entities, military-welfare organisations, or reservist-support bodies.

• The verified Tel Aviv VPN service evidence does not identify a public-sector, defence, police, intelligence, or settlement customer ⁴⁵.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

• Surfshark’s current public materials identify Dovydas Godelis as CEO and Vytautas Kaziukonis as founder and Chairman of the Board ¹.

• Surfshark’s February 2022 announcement identified Kaziukonis as its founder and CEO at the time of the Nord Security merger agreement ¹².

• Nord Security’s current leadership page identifies Tomas Okmanas, Eimantas Sabaliauskas, and Jonas Karklys as co-founders, and lists Dina Lurje as General Counsel and Head of Public Policy, Laurynas Zabulis as CFO, and Karina Dirvonskienė as COO ¹⁵.

• A 15 May 2025 Paris court judgment named both Surfshark B.V. in Amsterdam and Surfshark Ltd at Vistra Corporate Services Centre in Road Town, Tortola, BVI, as parties to the proceeding ¹⁶.

• The third-party-hosted judgment copy establishes that the two entities were litigants, but does not establish their ownership relationship, operating roles, or whether Surfshark Ltd remains active ¹⁶.

• No public evidence identified that Surfshark’s corporate charter, founding mandate, or primary mission advances Israeli state geopolitical objectives or infrastructure.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

• The research memo’s targeted searches identified no verified Israel/Palestine-related statements, IDF/FIDF/JNF/KKL donations, settlement-organisation support, anti-BDS roles, or Israel-linked defence or surveillance investments by Kaziukonis or Godelis ¹.

• The available public materials do not provide a complete group legal-entity chart, subsidiary list, shareholder register, beneficial-ownership disclosure, or named holding-company identity following the Nord Security combination ¹¹².

• The disclosed investment announcements identify investors and two board appointments but do not establish individual ownership stakes, voting control, or whether named investors, founders, or directors are controlling principals ¹³¹⁴.