Travel eSIMs secretly route traffic over Chinese and undisclosed networks: study

General News
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A new research study reveals vast majority of travel e-sim providers like Airalo and Holafly could route your traffic through Chinese-owned servers. Often, this happens regardless of your physical location; you do not need to be in China for this to happen.

Researchers from Northeastern University tested dozens of popular eSIM services and discovered that user traffic frequently passes through Chinese infrastructure, regardless of the customer’s actual location.

These e-sim resellers are not regulated at all. Not only is it easy for someone to start a similar travel e-sim business, they also gain substantial access to your personal information.

eSIM resellers gain extensive access to user data, including International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) numbers, and in one case, device location information accurate to within 800 metres, along with the ability to send SMS messages directly to users.

With the Pixel 10 and iPhone set to ditch the physical SIM cards, is there a way for someone to reliably obtain travel e-sims without going through these third-party resellers?

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I recently tested a dirt-cheap eSIM here in the US, which routed my internet through Hong Kong. Some websites that are not blocked in the USA were blocked as if I was in HK. Weird.

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You’re good if you use a VPN in this case or not?

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They can still get your realtime location.

Avoid these, use free Wi-Fi.

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Unfortunately, it is becoming a necessity for most people. There’s a thread on which are the “best” ones here.

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I believe this is the research paper; https://www.usenix.org/system/files/usenixsecurity25-motallebighomi.pdf