It seems many hospitals restrict international VPN access.
It seems many hospitals restrict international VPN access.
I work in a hospital setting, yet I often prefer being away from patients. Unfortunately, I can't access the employee network on my personal phone—I must rely on the guest network. Since that poses privacy risks, I use a VPN. I've been subscribed to ProtonVPN for months. However, yesterday IT introduced a rule blocking all VPN connections outside the US. They claim it's standard in hospitals. While I don’t want to verify this directly, I have many doubts about the reasoning. I’ve attached a screenshot of our chat with my IT contact. Could anyone clarify if this is typical and explain the reason?
To prevent unauthorized downloads on the hospital network, they aim to block leechers since it's a healthcare facility, not a coffee shop.
Why not restrict every popular VPN globally? Or set up servers for peer-to-peer connections? Since I can still download using Proton by linking to any server in California, Florida, or New York.
I don't understand, but I'm not a cooling solution for the hospitals' annoying rules.
Hospitals generally follow similar policies, though specifics vary by location and guidelines. Many prioritize patient safety and compliance with regulations.
I think this approach is mainly about restricting certain activities on the network while keeping essential services like M365, Apple apps, and Android functional. I must admit, as someone from Europe, it feels quite typical for the USA to treat anything outside their borders as if Montreal were a worse place. On the EU side, especially recently, geoblocking has become standard—blocking regions where there’s little business or relevance. This means people in countries unlikely to be on your network might need to connect through a different location, often forcing them to use public Wi-Fi at home. Also, I don’t see this as targeting VPNs specifically; they’re just preventing access to certain areas.
This might have some value since trying German websites, like dmvi.de without a clear reason, often triggers "connection reset." Yet there are many professionals in the US working in Canada and Mexico. It could be a fresh situation, and perhaps the person who referred me will improve the process later. I assumed they were blocking VPNs based on my IT contact's advice.
Attempting to reach the GameStop US site consistently triggers an "Access denied" alert. The system appears to struggle with geoblocks and website filtering. It makes sense that healthcare providers would restrict connections from outside the United States.