maybe to prevent being identified? If the UK is broadening its powers to silence protesters like this, even being photographed as part of a movement of quote unquote “violence, hatred or intolerance” could be enough to face fines, arrest, or other social consequences.
I’ve been using mullvad for a few years—since PIA got bought out—and would recommend it if you’re concerned about trust.
So, using a VPN doesn’t actually eliminate all possibility of being tracked. All you’re doing is replacing who can potentially see all of your data, from your ISP to the VPN provider, so trust is actually a pretty important factor.
When I switched the consensus at the time was that mullvad was the most true to its privacy statement, i.e. trustworthy. A lot of other vpns are cheaper or have more bells and whistles, but have histories of data breaches or scandals, are based in countries with weak privacy/strong surveillance laws, or are owned by companies that may have an interest in the customers data (like with the PIA acquisition I mentioned).
Mullvad too has had a few incidents where they were served court orders to provide data to the police, but iirc no data was ever actually given up. Plus, they allow a bunch of different privacy-centric payment methods, including just sending cash in an envelope.
I’d recommend taking a look at some more recent discussions comparing VPNs but I think considering mullvad is a good place to start.
I wish I could find more data on this subject going back to the early 20th century, all I could find was US defense spending. Info like this is a lot more useful with historical precedents to compare it to.