Does Hotspot Shield Keep Logs? What the Privacy Policy Actually Says (2026)

Short answer: Hotspot Shield doesn’t log the websites you visit in a way that’s tied to you, but it is not a no-logs VPN in the strict sense. It records how long your sessions last and how much data you use, keeps anonymized lists of domains visited across its user base, and lets advertising networks collect device identifiers on the free plan. It has never passed a full independent no-logs audit. That’s why it scores 0/5 on our no-logs criterion.

What Hotspot Shield’s privacy notice says it collects

Hotspot Shield is run by Pango (the company formerly known as AnchorFree). Its VPN products privacy notice is more detailed than most, which is to its credit. Read closely, it lists several kinds of data.

Session duration and bandwidth

The notice says Pango collects the “duration of VPN sessions and the bandwidth consumed”, used to run the service and enforce limits on the free plan. This is connection metadata. It doesn’t reveal what you did, but it records when and how much you used the VPN.

Your real IP address, temporarily

Your device’s IP address is collected when you connect, encrypted, and deleted when the session ends, according to the notice. Most VPNs need your IP address briefly to route traffic back to you. The question is whether it’s stored afterwards, and Hotspot Shield says it isn’t.

Domains visited, “on an anonymized basis”

This is the part that bothers privacy-focused users most. Pango says it records “domains that have been accessed by our users, but on an anonymized basis”, aggregated monthly, without full URLs or identifying information. Aggregated domain stats aren’t the same as a browsing log per user. But most VPNs we rate highly don’t collect domain data at all, and “anonymized” is only as strong as the method behind it, which the notice doesn’t detail.

Device identifiers

Pango uses device hashes to identify devices, measure bandwidth, provide support and run analytics. The notice says these are kept separate from browsing activity.

Advertising data on the free version

The free app shows ads, and third-party ad networks (the notice names Unity Ads, Ironsource, Digital Turbine and InMobi) collect mobile advertising IDs, IP addresses, device model, OS version, language and time zone. In plain terms: on the free plan, companies outside Hotspot Shield get data that can profile your device. The premium plan removes ads.

Has Hotspot Shield been audited?

Partially. In 2023, Pango commissioned Aon to review whether its VPN matched two specific privacy claims: that browsing activity isn’t recorded in a way that can be linked to a user, and that IP addresses or device identifiers aren’t logged alongside browsing activity. Aon concluded that the product was designed in line with those claims, per the summary report dated August 25, 2023.

That’s useful, but it’s narrower than the no-logs audits we count as proof. The report explicitly excluded security practices across hosting environments, and it’s a single, three-year-old review. Compare that with NordVPN or ProtonVPN, whose no-logs policies have been audited repeatedly by firms like PwC, Deloitte or KPMG. Our guide to verifying a no-logs policy explains why scope and frequency matter as much as the auditor’s name.

The history that still follows Hotspot Shield

Two episodes explain why privacy communities remain wary.

In August 2017, the Center for Democracy & Technology filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Hotspot Shield’s practices contradicted its privacy promises, including claims about traffic redirection for advertising. The company denied the allegations.

In February 2018, a researcher disclosed CVE-2018-6460, a flaw that could expose users’ Wi-Fi network name and country through a local web server, as reported by The Hacker News. It was patched, but it’s why our table marks Hotspot Shield with a proven user data leak and gives it 1/5 on leak protection.

Both are years old. Companies change. But neither was followed by the kind of full, repeated no-logs audit that would close the question.

How Hotspot Shield scores in our table

Hotspot Shield isn’t bad at everything. It’s fast, its apps are simple and support is responsive. Where it falls short is exactly where a VPN is supposed to be strongest: proving it can’t hand over data about you.

Want to compare all VPNs side by side? Check our full VPN comparison table with scores across 18 criteria.

Hotspot Shield vs VPNs with audited no-logs policies

If logging is your main concern, the alternatives are clear and several are cheaper:

NordVPN costs less per year than Hotspot Shield and has been audited several times. ProtonVPN is cheaper still and has a free plan without ads or data caps, which makes it the better choice if you currently use Hotspot Shield’s free tier. Our audited no-logs VPN ranking covers the full list.

How to see what Hotspot Shield holds about you

If you’re in the EU, the UK or Switzerland, you don’t have to take the privacy notice on trust. Data protection law gives you the right to ask a company for a copy of the personal data it holds on you. Send a written access request to the privacy contact listed in Pango’s notice, mention your account email, and ask specifically for session records, device identifiers and any advertising identifiers linked to your account. The company has to answer within a month in most cases. It’s a small effort, and the answer tells you more than any marketing page.

Is Hotspot Shield safe to use?

For casual use, like protecting a laptop on café Wi-Fi or getting around a basic geo-block, Hotspot Shield does the job. For anything where it matters who can see your activity later (journalism, activism, sensitive research, torrenting), we wouldn’t choose it. The free version is the weakest option, since ad networks collect data that can identify your device.

Free and premium are not the same product from a privacy point of view. The premium plan removes the ad SDKs, which removes the largest source of third-party data collection described in the notice. Session metadata and anonymized domain statistics still apply to paying users. So if you like the app and want to keep it, paying is the better of the two options, but it doesn’t turn Hotspot Shield into an audited no-logs VPN.

If you already pay for Hotspot Shield, you don’t need to panic. Nothing suggests it’s selling your browsing history. But when your plan renews, you can get a VPN with stronger proof for less money. Our full Hotspot Shield review covers speed and streaming in more depth.