Email Service ProtonMail Hands Over Private Data of Activist to French Authorities, Resulting in Their Imprisonment
Shane Trejo
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The encrypted email service Protonmail, which claims it protects the privacy of its users, handed over the private data of a climate activist to French authorities, resulting in their imprisonment.
They surrendered the browser fingerprint and IP address of the activist to French authorities after having policies that erroneously told users that “by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account.”
After this turned out to be a deception the entire time, they changed their policies afterward to say: “ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first.”
ProtonMail responded by blaming the Swiss courts for forcing them to log IP addresses and comply with the request.
“In this case, Proton received a legally binding order from Swiss authorities which we are obligated to comply with. There was no possibility to appeal this particular request,” wrote Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton.
They are now going to encourage people to use the Tor browser, which will supposedly allow individuals to use the email service with anonymity. However, ArsTechnica noted that this protection will only go so far.
“If a government agency or other threat can compromise Tor nodes your traffic passes through in a way that offers it a way to track origins, there is no policy preventing said government from doing so—or from using that data for law enforcement purposes,” wrote ArsTechnica author and coder Jim Salter.
Even though encryption is far from a perfect science, globalists are still working frantically to ban its usage in social media apps and other services, as Big League Politics has reported:
“As Europe opens it borders, the European Union (EU) is responding with a push to ban peer-to-peer encrypted messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram to supposedly combat Islamic terrorism.
The Austrian TV network ORF obtained a draft resolution of the EU proposal. The EU claims in the document that encryption is a “necessary means of protecting fundamental rights” in one breathe while at the same time promoting “competent authorities in the area of security and criminal justice” to justify the crackdown against encryption.
“Law enforcement is increasingly dependent on access to electronic evidence to effectively fight terrorism, organized crime, child sexual abuse (particularly its online aspects), as well as a variety of cyber-enabled crimes. For competent authorities, access to electronic evidence is not only essential to conduct successful investigations and thereby bring criminals to justice, but also to protect victims and help ensure security,” the draft resolution states.
“The principle of security through encryption and security despite encryption must be upheld in its entirety. The European Union continues to support strong encryption. Encryption is an anchor of confidence in digitization and in protection of fundamental rights and should be promoted and developed,” the resolution continues.
“Protecting the privacy and security of communications through encryption and at the same time upholding the possibility for competent authorities in the area of security and criminal justice to lawfully access relevant data for legitimate, clearly defined purposes in fighting serious and/or organized crimes and terrorism, including in the digital world, are extremely important. Any actions taken have to balance these interests carefully,” the document adds.”
Activists need to continue to support products and services that promote privacy rights and abandon firms that refuse to live up to their billing.
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