A Swiss court said on Friday that Geneva-based Proton AG, the firm behind ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, had won an appeal regarding its treatment under Swiss law controlling telecommunications surveillance.
Proton bills itself as the world’s most secure email provider, claiming to use end-to-end encryption and cutting-edge security technologies. The Swiss Federal Administrative Court upheld a challenge to the Swiss Post and Telecommunications Surveillance Service’s (PTSS) status and monitoring requirements.
The court ruled that email services are not deemed telecommunications providers in Switzerland, and hence are exempt from the country’s data retention laws.
In September 2020, PTSS concluded that Proton and ProtonVPN could no longer benefit from restricted surveillance requirements, but instead had to keep data required for surveillance and be accessible to answer its questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The court overturned the judgment and remanded the case for further consideration.
In April, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that chat, instant messaging, Internet video or telephone services, or email services like Threema, WhatsApp, iMessage, Zoom, Teams, Chime, or Skype were not telecom service providers, but rather “over-the-top” (OTT) service providers.
“Together, these two verdicts are a triumph for privacy in Switzerland and a success for Swiss tech companies,” Proton said in a statement. “They exempt them from onerous telco restrictions and giving over specific user information in response to Swiss legal requests.”
However, Proton has come under fire after a police report revealed that it gave a user’s IP address to a French investigation that resulted in the arrest of climate activists.
A call to the PTSS, which organizes requests for information on users from Swiss police, prosecutors, and intelligence services, was not immediately returned.
