ProtonMail Caught Handing Over IP Address Of French Activist To Swiss Authorities

ProtonMail, an email provider that champions privacy through it’s end-to-end encrypted service, is under heavy criticism after a police report was uncovered showing that they had provided French authorities with the IP address of a French climate activist, leading to their arrest. While ProtonMail does not need to comply with French or EU laws, the Switzerland-based company must comply with the Swiss courts; and so, French authorities went through the Swiss police to get a court order.

Andy Yen, Proton Technologies CEO, came out with a statement that the company had no choice but to comply with the legally binding order as they are obligated to follow local laws. Under its own transparency report, they state that they are legally bound to log IP addresses “in extreme criminal cases,” such as when an account is suspected to be involved in criminal activity. “There was no possibility to appeal this particular request,” he said.

Andy added that their encryption be bypassed, meaning they, and therefore the authorities, have no access to the contents of users’ emails. “We do not know the identity of our users, and at no point were we aware that the targeted users were climate activists,” said the CEO. While Swiss law requires users to be notified of any requests for their data, ProtonMail notes that “in certain circumstances,” a notification “can be delayed.”

The data request was part of an investigation into a group of climate activists that protested against gentrification by occupying commercial locations and apartments near Paris’ Place Sainte Marthe. While it started as a local effort, it quickly grew into a national movement. On 1 September, the group published an article on an anti-capitalist news site that French police had contacted the Swiss authorities through Europol to uncover the owner of their ProtonMail account.

Proton reports that in 2020, it received 3572 orders for user information, contested 750 orders, and complied with 3017 requests. That number is more than double the number of requests from the Swiss authorities on behalf of foreign governments from the previous year, meaning that Swiss courts are issuing orders that violate privacy at an alarming rate. Amidst this worrying case, Andy Yen encourages its users to use Tor or ProtonVPN, as Swiss law does not touch on IP logging for VPNs.

French Officials Accuse Google Of Breaching Government Orders In Pay-For-News Negotiations

French antitrust investigators apparently have claimed that Google violated government orders on how to hold negotiations with news publishers. This is yet another interesting twist as governments around the world have been trying to make big tech platforms like Google and Facebook pay news publishers for content.

According to Reuters who cited two sources claimed to have seen the investigators’ report (also known as a statement of objections), it described Google’s non-compliance as exceptionally serious. Google allegedly didn’t begin negotiations with publishers within a three-month deadline as mandated and didn’t provide all the data that investigators believe publishers needed.

Google responded to the news by saying it will comply with the law and pointed to the deals that it had already made with publishers in the last few months. The company also said it would review the statement of objections, and work closely with the authorities.

Some French news publishers which didn’t sign a deal with Google accused the tech firm of not talking with them in good faith to reach an agreement. The search engine giant risks being fined up to 10% of its sales for not complying with rules set by the French competition authority. Just to note, in 2020, the company’s annual sales reached about US$183 billion (~RM739 billion).

Google has been busy signing deals with news content providers around the world in face of mounting government pressure, especially in Australia. Facebook has taken a more confrontational and dramatic approach – banning all news content from Australian users which then resulted in the government reversing that ban.