Security News > 2021 > September > ProtonMail Forced to Log IP Address of French Activist

The privacy-hugging, end-to-end encryption-providing email provider ProtonMail was forced to log the IP address of a French activist and turn it over to Europol, according to a French police report that came to light over the weekend.

French police sent a request to Swiss police via Europol and thus managed to force the company to hand over the IP address and device details of the French activist.

Yen pointed out that from the get-go, ProtonMail has said that the company can be legally compelled to log IP addresses.

As we wrote in our public threat model, "The internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address." This cannot be changed due to how the internet works.

It now reads: "If you are breaking Swiss law, ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address as part of a Swiss criminal investigation."

ProtonMail hasn't clarified the timing on when it handed over the activist's data and when the company notified the user that they'd received a request for the user's IP address and browser fingerprint.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/protonmail-log-ip-address-french-activist/169242/