United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has introduced an amendment to a law restricting the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and proxies, with jail time and fines of over $500,000 applicable to those who violate the rules, IB Times reported.

President Khalifa issued an amendment to an existing law governing information technology crimes in the country which proposes:

"Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery, shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than Dh500,000 and not exceeding Dh2,000,000, or either of these two penalties."

Under the amended law, the use of VPNs ─ tools that can be used to manipulate user IP addresses ─ may punish Internet users attempting to access pornographic content, the dark web and VoIP software and apps such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, which are blocked in the UAE, according to Private Internet Access, a Califonia-based privacy and VPN advocate.

VPNs enable users to bypass restrictions on blocked content by generating fake IP addresses or spoofing user locations. They can be used to circumvent state-imposed censorship on online resources and mobile apps.