Brave VPN and Rewards disabled for users with device language/region set to an OFAC-sanctioned country, even if they are physically located in the USA

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Description

Brave VPN and Rewards are disabled for users with device language/region set to an OFAC-sanctioned country, even if they are physically located in the USA.

USE CASE: I am physically located in the US, but I prefer to use Russian language on some of my devices. On Android the user cannot select language and region separately. So, if I set Russian language in device settings, I can't choose the USA as my region. In this case, VPN and Rewards become unavailable for me.

WORKAROUND: To be able to use Russian language on a device and in the apps (including Brave) but not lose access to VPN and Rewards at the same time, after switching the device's language to Russian I have to launch Brave > Hamburger menu > Settings > Languages > Update Brave's language from Current device language - Russian (Russia) to Russian explicitly.

NOTE: _Maybe we can change the way how we recognize users' location and:

• use Play Store account regional settings
• or set Brave's language explicitly to the one that the user selected in Android settings. Later if users decide to set a different language for Brave, they can do it the same way as before, so nothing will change from the user's perspective._

Steps to reproduce

1. Be physically in the USA or Canada or another not OFAC-sanctioned country
2. Set device language/region to one of the OFAC-sanctioned countries like Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Cuba, etc.
3. Launch Brave > Hamburger menu > Settings > Observe that VPN and Rewards unavailable

Actual result

Brave VPN and Rewards are disabled for users with device language/region set to an OFAC-sanctioned country, even if they are physically located in the USA or another not OFAC-sanctioned country.

Device Language	Available Regions	No VPN or Rewards	Play Store region setup	Brave Language

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WORKAROUND: To be able to use Russian language on a device and in the apps (including Brave) but not lose access to VPN and Rewards at the same time, after switching the device's language to Russian I have to launch Brave > Hamburger menu > Settings > Languages > Update Brave's language from Current device language - Russian (Russia) to Russian explicitly.

2025-01-23_17-03-19.mp4

Expected result

VPN and Rewards must be available for users who are physically located in a non-OFAC-sanctioned country, like the USA or Canada, but who set device language to one of these OFAC-sanctioned countries like Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Cuba, etc.

Reproduces how often

Easily reproduced

Brave version

Brave build: 1.74.50
Chromium: 132.0.6834.111 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Device

• Brand/Model: ANY
• Android version: ANY

Channel information

• release (stable)
• beta
• nightly

Reproducibility

• with Brave Shields disabled
• with Brave Rewards disabled
• in the latest version of Chrome

Miscellaneous information

No response