Open letter against Swiss Ordinance on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications Traffic

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On February 4th, 19 civil society organizations, coordinated by EDRi, signed an open letter against a proposed Swiss Ordinance on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications Traffic.

I didn’t find a draft text of the proposed law. According to Tuta, the law in its current form would mandate communications companies, for instance email and VPN providers, to

  • Log IP address and retain the data for six months
  • Confirm government-issued ID upon account registration, making anonymous account creation impossible
  • Provide plaintext traffic to law enforcement upon request

Outline of concerns in the letter

  1. Violation of the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection
  2. Chilling effect on the exercise of other rights and freedoms
  3. Incompatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
  4. Risk posed to Switzerland’s adequacy status with the EU
  5. Cybersecurity risks
  6. Existence of less intrusive alternative measures

More information

I wonder this law would affect Proton and Threema, who are based in Switzerland, however I could not find any comments made by them.

Just thinking out aloud, while it’s not too late, it may help to

  • Share the letter widely
  • Encourage other civil society organization to sign the letter
  • Pressure Swiss politicians not to enact this law
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Proton, which offers secure and end-to-end encrypted email along with an ultra-private VPN and cloud storage, announced on July 23 that it is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland due to the proposed law.

In October 2021, The Swiss Federal Administrative Court ultimately agreed with us and ruled that email companies cannot be considered telecommunication providers. This means Proton isn’t required to follow any of the SPTA’s mandatory data retention rules, nor are we bound by a full obligation to identify Proton Mail users. Moreover, as a Swiss company, Proton Mail cannot be compelled to engage in bulk surveillance on behalf of US or Swiss intelligence agencies.