Security News > 2021 > September > ProtonMail deletes 'we don't log your IP' boast from website after French climate activist reportedly arrested
Encrypted email service ProtonMail has become embroiled in a minor scandal after responding to a legal request to hand over a user's IP address and details of the devices he used to access his mailbox to Swiss police - resulting in the user's arrest.
Police were executing a warrant obtained by French authorities and served on their Swiss counterparts through Interpol, according to social media rumours that ProtonMail chief exec Andy Yen acknowledged to The Register.
ProtonMail has said in the past that it does not collect user data and implements end-to-end encryption and repeated that over the weekend, saying: "Under no circumstances however, can our encryption be bypassed, meaning emails, attachments, calendars, files, etc, cannot be compromised by legal orders."
Back in January this year, the company's homepage stated: "No personal information is required to create your secure email account. By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account. Your privacy comes first."
As a Swiss company, ProtonMail is obliged to obey Swiss law and comply with Swiss legal demands, though it's unclear why the company was logging user-agent strings and IP addresses of client logins.
An option exists in ProtonMail's user interface to enable access logging, though there is no information in public to suggest whether or not the French environmental protestor had enabled that.