this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Privacy
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is this the 2021 incident? i heard about that, i thought something new was ment
(Rant) But kind telling that everytime i hear about stuff like this it is somehow an activist who fights for climate change or like in italy with the whatsapp spyware, people who save refugees in the open sea.
And not the mass murder terrorists or child rapists they claim the survailance tools will be used on.
I feel like this was more recent, but it could be that I read it recently. Theres an official response from proton regarding this incident if you want to learn more about the situation.
One benefit of using proton is because your emails live in Switzerland and your data is subject to their laws around data privacy. From what I know, that doesn't protect you from criminal investigation, but it does protect your data from non government agency requests and data brokers.
The climate activist I'm referring to was squatting in high rises as protest, which is against the law in france. France used interpol to communicate with the swiss government in order to get more information about their suspect. The official response from proton covers more about this incident, and I think it's likely they had no idea what this climate activist was doing.
Privacy unfortunately does not mean youre free to commit crimes, or even that your personal info is safe from police inquiry. That is anonymity, not privacy.
Although I don't agree with protons decision to remove wording around logging IPs in their terms of service, it's disingenuous to think that proton is somehow complicit and is "tracking down activists". From my perspective, they were following the law, as messed up as the law is.