Best VPNs for Belize

Using a Belizean IP

Belize is the country with the lowest population and population density in Central America. It was one of the first Latin American countries to privatize its national telecom company in 1988 and gave it a 15-year monopoly. Because of this, internet access has been widely available for some years now, but, due to high prices, internet penetration has been low. In 2013 when Belize Telecom started seeing new companies in the market, internet penetration started growing slowly and, after implementing fiber optic in the middle of 2018, at the beginning of 2019, Belize had an internet penetration of 60%. Moreover, with the implementation of fiber optic, the average internet speed increased to a solid 20Mbps, a 150% increase from 2018.

However, since the internet took so long to become reliable, there are no national streaming services in the country. There are a few national TV stations as well as national radio stations, but understandably, they haven’t had the time yet to add internet into their broadcasting strategy. There are a few that still don’t have a website and seem to be satisfied with only a Facebook page, while the others who do have websites still don’t have live watch options. Nonetheless, some of the companies claim to be working on it. Still, just because there are no national streaming services, does not mean there aren’t any international ones. Some of the examples are Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Belizean online privacy laws

Although Belize is part of the minority of countries who do not have any official data privacy laws and, therefore, online privacy laws, it doesn’t mean Belizean citizens are entirely unprotected. Article three, under part two of the constitution, guarantees the right to personal privacy and the privacy of one’s home and other property.

In other words, privacy and data protection fit within this article, transforming it into a personal right incorporated into the constitution. The constitution, therefore, forbids arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, protecting Belizean citizens’ online data.

However, it’s worth noting that law enforcement agents can breach this article on certain occasions. These occurrences are when it’s required for the interests of public defense and safety, or to protect other peoples’ rights or freedom, or to enforce judgment or order of the court in any civil proceedings.

Internet censorship in Belize

The Belizean constitution clearly states freedom of expression, recognized in article 12. However, the same exceptions included in the freedom of privacy apply. Nevertheless, the media operates freely, and the same goes for the typical internet user. Due to this, Freedom House ranks Belize as a “free” country.

Although the authorities have the right to intervene in the interests of national security, public order, or morality at stake, those interventions rarely occur. However, those who question the validity of financial disclosure statements submitted by public officials can be imprisoned up to three years. Moreover, since the country has libel (defamation) laws in place, it encourages some self-censorship.

On top of that, the Belize Broadcasting Authority, a state-regulated agency, has the right to preview and censor broadcasts, including those with political content.

However, even though there are some minor restrictions, overall Belize is a free country where you can speak your mind, and there are no blocked websites within the country unless the company itself does the blocking – something we see sometimes with certain streaming services, for example.

The same thing applies to the opposite situation. It’s possible to access the majority of Belize’s websites with a foreign IP without any problem. Again, the ones that are unavailable are unavailable due to their own choice, not because they were forced to do so by the government.

Streaming services in Belize

As stated above, Netflix has arrived in Belize. Although its library is not as vast as the American one, it’s still decent with more than 600 shows and almost 3,000 movies available.

However, probably due to low internet penetration and low population, the list of streaming services available in the country is limited. Besides Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, the only other service we were able to find was YouTube. Therefore, while in Belize, a VPN becomes essential in order to reach your favorite streaming services, especially if you can’t live without your music streaming app.

While the most popular social media websites are available, Snapchat has still not arrived in the country. So, if you are an avid Snapchat user, the use of a VPN is also necessary while in the country.

Free Belizean VPN trials

Not surprisingly, there are only a few VPN providers offering Belizean IPs.

PureVPN