Post #587819
2026-03-08 15:57 UTC
Replies (2)
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@zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-08 16:10
No, lol. That would have to go through a Swiss court first. Also, the only info the FBI is going to get is “Yes, this person is a ProtonVPN customer.” Your data is end-to-end encrypted, so Proton cannot decrypt it.
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@redpulpo@lemmy.world 2026-03-09 12:20
That’s a misleading way to frame it. Proton doesn’t “unmask customers for the FBI.” They respond to legal requests through Swiss authorities, like any company operating under a jurisdiction. And in the reported cases what was provided was account or payment metadata, not decrypted email content. If someone ties their real identity to an account through payments, no provider can magically make that anonymous. A good comparison is Mullvad VPN. When Swedish police searched their offices in 2023, they left empty-handed because Mullvad doesn’t keep user identities and accounts aren’t tied to emails. If a user registers without identifiable payment, there simply isn’t much data to hand over. The real issue isn’t “betrayal,” it’s what data exists in the first place.