Anthropic Tightens VPN Enforcement on Claude in Hong Kong, Suspending Long-Term User Accounts

Anthropic, the American AI firm, seems to have stepped up its enforcement of geographic limitations on its Claude models in Hong Kong. Local users have reported unexpected account suspensions after utilizing virtual private networks. On Thursday, complaints flooded X and Reddit, with accounts that had functioned for months through VPNs being abruptly disabled. A user from Hong Kong shared on the r/claude subreddit that they received an email from Anthropic's safeguards team indicating "suspicious signals" linked to their account, which would be terminated for policy breaches. "I used it with NordVPN from Hong Kong for six months, and today this happened," the user noted, while trying to recover conversation history. Some tech-savvy individuals are bypassing these restrictions by connecting through Singapore and using foreign payment methods. This enforcement represents a significant change for users who had depended on VPNs to access Claude, which is unavailable in Hong Kong.