# Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/proton-is-moving-most-of-its-physical-infrastructure-out-of-switzerland/29398 **Category:** General **Tags:** article **Created:** 2025-07-24T13:24:32Z **Posts:** 91 ## Post 1 by @jonah — 2025-07-23T14:24:24Z Continuing the discussion from [Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/introducing-lumo-the-ai-where-every-conversation-is-confidential-proton/29346) * * * > [@Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/introducing-lumo-the-ai-where-every-conversation-is-confidential-proton/29346/26): > > **Anyway, did anyone catch the bomb that Proton sneaked into this [announcement](https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai#:~:text=Building%2520EuroStack%2520for%2520the%2520future)?!** > > > _**Because of legal uncertainty around [Swiss government proposals](https://www.tdg.ch/surveillance-le-geant-des-mails-cryptes-proton-pret-a-quitter-geneve-947402188210) to introduce mass surveillance — proposals that have been outlawed in the EU — Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland. Lumo will be the first product to move.**_ Yeah, that was surprising to me. Do we know where in the EU they are moving to? Do we know if their Swiss legal jurisdiction could still pose a problem even if the data itself is outside of Switzerland? Raises a lot of questions… --- ## Post 2 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-23T14:25:59Z @Proton_Team - hope you can clarify this soon. This is going to be a popular thread/post so might as well.. --- ## Post 3 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-23T14:37:28Z > [@jonah](#): > > Yeah, that was surprising to me. Do we know where in the EU they are moving to? Do we know if their Swiss legal jurisdiction could still pose a problem even if the data itself is outside of Switzerland? Raises a lot of questions… I don’t think we know where yet, but if they move to Germany, Tuta is going to be delighted. Legally, they will be on equal footing. I definitely expect some snark. This morning, I found out about [the CLOUD ACT](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous-expansion-police-snooping-cross-border-data), which was sneak-passed in 2018 in the US. Maybe I had learned about it then, but I have no recollection of it. Two days ago, [it was reported](https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/microsoft-cant-keep-eu-data-safe-from-us-authorities/) that last month, in a sworn testimony before the French Senate, the Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft in France admitted that EU data, and hence the data of any country stored on Microsoft servers, is not safe from snooping. And of course this applies to the data saved on any American company’s servers. [This explains why European cities are dropping Microsoft over privacy concerns.](https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-city-is-dumping-microsoft-office-and-windows-for-onlyoffice-and-linux-heres-why/) European companies, and I guess by extension the EU, are really gearing up to become a beacon for privacy. --- ## Post 4 by @fria — 2025-07-23T14:38:51Z > [@PurpleDime](#): > > European companies, and I guess by extension the EU, are really gearing up to become a beacon for privacy. The EU needs to stop trying to backdoor all encryption first. --- ## Post 5 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-23T14:45:11Z > [@Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/introducing-lumo-the-ai-where-every-conversation-is-confidential-proton/29346/35): > > ![](https://forum-cdn.privacyguides.net/user_avatar/discuss.privacyguides.net/purpledime/48/4885_2.png)[Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/introducing-lumo-the-ai-where-every-conversation-is-confidential-proton/29346/35) > > > European companies, and I guess by extension the EU, are really gearing up to become a beacon for privacy. > > The EU needs to stop trying to backdoor all encryption, first. Agreed. I’ve been seeing **#DigitalSovereignty** trend on Twitter in the last couple of weeks, and they were all tweets from European companies, including privacy companies like Tuta. I don’t want people to fall into the trap of believing that just because a company is European, it means their data is protected and free from prying eyes. I have no doubt that many European companies will engage in privacy washing, and it’s probably going to work on a lot of people. --- ## Post 6 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-23T14:47:45Z This reinforces the job of spreading awareness and educating people of privacy, data security, etc. that entities like PG, Techlore, companies like Proton, Tuta, Mullvad, etc., and communities like this have. We always need more people educating, more options be made available, and more support from anyone who likes and agrees and can afford to support such institutions. --- ## Post 7 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2025-07-24T01:05:26Z > [@jonah](#): > > Do we know where in the EU they are moving to? The translated article speculates: > “Andy Yen points out that the majority of computer servers, at the heart of Proton’s business, have been relocated to Germanic and Norwegian data centres as early as 2021 in the face of the threat of passing under the surveillance of the SCPT service. They were all previously settled in Switzerland. > Leave Geneva, to go where? The latter mentions several possible relocations. Before admitting that “Germany would certainly be the most obvious alternative”.” --- ## Post 8 by @jonah — 2025-07-24T02:09:10Z That’s a bummer, Germany is probably the most obvious no-go that comes to mind for me :confused: --- ## Post 9 by @PrivadoQ — 2025-07-24T02:24:27Z This caught my attention more than the actual Lumo announcement. I thought of upgrading but it doesn’t seem like Lumo is particularly good at this time, and I would like to know more about the LLMs Lumo is using, as I don’t know if they have plans to update beyond October 2023 (current info date). That being said, I’m interested in a more private LLM. On that note, I don’t know if it’s been discussed in this forum, but I recently tried the Dia browser, and after 20 minutes, was freaked out by the website reading absolutely every page I read. If that’s the future of the internet, I’m slightly terrified for privacy and further dumbing down of society. --- ## Post 10 by @moonwriting — 2025-07-24T02:39:03Z Why is that? Isn’t Germany known for its strong privacy laws? --- ## Post 11 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-24T02:49:52Z Yes. They do have strong privacy laws and policies. I do not have the specifics for it off the top of my head but Germany is a fine place to be for a privacy company. Tuta is based in Germany. --- ## Post 12 by @anon1234 — 2025-07-24T04:29:35Z jonah, can you elaborate for us? Why is Germany an obvious no-go? (just wanting to learn) --- ## Post 13 by @jonah — 2025-07-24T04:43:08Z They are very Tor hostile and from an infrastructure perspective practically everything in the EU is being centralized in Germany and/or the Netherlands, which is giving their governments power disproportionate to what they should have. We ditched Hetzner entirely because Germany is not a friendly jurisdiction. This is all relative. Germany is of course far better than like Brazil or India or any number of other countries really. But _in the EU_ there are many countries I would prefer before a German deployment. Edit: Not to mention it will mean **all** the email providers we recommend will house their data in Germany now. What a nightmare, so much for user choice. --- ## Post 14 by @xuoasnw — 2025-07-24T09:02:36Z I understand your point about centralization. However, legally it seems to me that Germany is really really solid. What other countries would you prefer before it? --- ## Post 16 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-24T13:25:06Z Yes. This was shared yesterday in another thread. --- ## Post 17 by @redoomed1 — 2025-07-24T13:36:13Z Yeah, I was moving all the discussion about this particular topic to its own thread so it isn’t mixed with the other discussion about Lumo itself. I just made the process more difficult than it needed to be :sweat_smile: --- ## Post 18 by @Shampoo — 2025-07-24T13:59:03Z Spain or France seem more likely than Germany. Every infrastructure job proton has listed on their [careers page](https://proton.me/careers#jobslist) lists Barcelona as one of, or the only, EU location you can work at. Paris is also an option on three out of four. --- ## Post 19 by @KevPham — 2025-07-24T14:06:18Z Is Spain even a good candidate? Not only is the government complicit is [deploying spyware against political dissidents](https://citizenlab.ca/2022/04/catalangate-extensive-mercenary-spyware-operation-against-catalans-using-pegasus-candiru/), but Barcelona has essentially become the targeted spyware capital of the world outside of Israel. So many spyware companies have moved there after media attention forced them to rebrand and change jurisdictions. --- ## Post 20 by @Regime6045 — 2025-07-24T14:26:20Z What other European countries would be worth considering if you are the Proton CEO? Iceland is often mentioned as having great privacy laws, but it’s maybe too far away and my understanding is that Proton wants to have physical control over their servers? Not sure what’s the most privacy-friendly country in the EU, I once heard Estonia and another time Romania but not sure if that’s even true. What about a “flying under the radar” non-EU country like Bosnia or Serbia? --- ## Post 21 by @arise1984 — 2025-07-24T14:37:52Z Interested to know too what others think is the “lesser devil” countries in the EU? Imho its tricky to a large-ish business ala Proton to change jurisdiction, its not like they can just push a button. --- ## Post 22 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2025-07-24T14:55:23Z Just a reminder, language still a barrier to many places. We refer to EU as of a single entity but all those countries speaks their own language and even if they are well versed in English it is a completely different story to live daily in a place that most people interact in another language. Proton comes from cities that speaks French and German, I’d assume that they would look to move to some English, French or German native speak language country to offset the trouble of moving to another place. --- ## Post 23 by @shadowwwind — 2025-07-24T14:57:15Z Yea German politicians are a big driving force in European politics and chat control and the sort often are supported by one of our big parties. Even though the previous and the current government have in their goverment contract to not do chat control and massive data collections, the ministers for inner security always pushes it forward no matter which party they are from. --- ## Post 24 by @KevPham — 2025-07-24T15:15:09Z > [@shadowwwind](#): > > the ministers for inner security always pushes it forward no matter which party they are from. It’s an annoying pattern. Almost every single head of an interior security or law enforcement agency has the same talking point. It’s almost like you want to make your job easier for you at the cost of basic human rights? Or your own intelligence community’s operational security? Regardless of politics? --- ## Post 25 by @anon64393658 — 2025-07-24T16:13:40Z They should consider moving to the U.S. Not joking. Right to E2EE is pretty well established in case law within U.S. courts; the U.S. has the best cloud infrastructure in the world, and it will be very easy to hire talent. The Cloud Act is no worse than any laws in the EU for lawful access. It’s also not a factor for E2EE services. I mean Signal is here. Why not Proton? --- ## Post 26 by @KevPham — 2025-07-24T16:21:48Z > [@anon64393658](#): > > Not joking. Right to E2EE is pretty well established in case law within U.S. courts; the U.S. has the best cloud infrastructure in the world, and it will be very easy to hire talent. Be prepared for pitchforks! But seriously though, U.S constitutional protections can somewhat help US-based companies. Foreigners have no protection against warrantless surveillance (see FISA). The issue is that we don’t know if the government will respect these protections as they have ignored them in the past with bulk metadata collection. Sovereignty does have a lot of benefits if your threat model involves jurisdiction. Unlike the US, EU residents have actual data protection legislation. If any chat control or E2EE legislation does take place, the US would most likely lobby on behalf of their Big Tech companies like they did recently to the UK. --- ## Post 27 by @destiny — 2025-07-24T16:22:28Z Moving Proton to the US is unwise, considering that a major selling point of Proton for Europeans right now is digital sovereignty. --- ## Post 28 by @anon39279085 — 2025-07-24T16:24:29Z I mean I think Norway or Japan would be wise for Proton, just my 2 cents --- ## Post 29 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-24T16:26:35Z > [@PurpleDime](#): > > ![](https://forum-cdn.privacyguides.net/user_avatar/discuss.privacyguides.net/jonah/48/8151_2.png) jonah: > > > Yeah, that was surprising to me. Do we know where in the EU they are moving to? Do we know if their Swiss legal jurisdiction could still pose a problem even if the data itself is outside of Switzerland? Raises a lot of questions… > > I don’t think we know where yet, but if they move to Germany, _ **Tuta is going to be delighted. Legally, they will be on equal footing. I definitely expect some snark.** _ Ha! [I knew it!](https://x.com/TutaPrivacy/status/1948297765768896948) They quoted you (@jonah) too! ![TUTA1](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/1/1630c391c7331123504b2f443431309ab07a6843.jpeg) --- ## Post 30 by @anon55464882 — 2025-07-24T16:26:49Z Keep in mind that Germany is/was one of the strongest opponents of EU Chat Control. --- ## Post 31 by @anon39279085 — 2025-07-24T16:32:41Z is/was can mean different things for the stance of Germany so it’s best to just research. We do know so far that Germany and I think Netherlands are opposing Chat Control/ProtectEU yes and this may prevent from passing but things may or may not have changed. --- ## Post 32 by @trlcnmd — 2025-07-24T16:37:47Z Currently enrolled in an open course at XAMK. I am researching various stances and beliefs in Finland, and I believe it could be a nation worth including among the suitables. However, as mentioned, if Proton were to require physical controls, it could pose some significant constraints for them. It was indeed somewhat jarring to hear; I still can’t believe they made changes to their infrastructure without any real “declaration”, aside from this one regarding Lumo. --- ## Post 33 by @jonah — 2025-07-24T16:53:09Z 0% chance this will happen, and you will be debated by everyone in Europe who thinks Europe is just inherently superior to the US, but if we are being honest you are correct that the legal protections from government overreach afforded to companies like Signal in the US are stronger than most/all European countries. That being said, this would still be a stupid time for any company to move to the US simply due to the chaos and unpredictability of the current administration, so even if Proton was seriously considering it I would not support such a move. I do also think @destiny has a very valid point which is that most people in the EU are now wary of US services, whereas people in the US do not care if they use a EU service, so ignoring privacy/laws entirely it would still be a huge marketing blunder. --- ## Post 34 by @anonymous372 — 2025-07-24T17:00:35Z Or maybe Iceland? --- ## Post 35 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2025-07-24T17:29:22Z That would be quite a shift. I’d find last disruptive if they would decide to go to: France, Germany, Austria or Czech (last option but my preferred to be honest) --- ## Post 36 by @xe3 — 2025-07-24T17:32:23Z > [@trlcnmd](#): > > I still can’t believe they made changes to their infrastructure without any real “declaration”, aside from this one regarding Lumo. Not only “changes to infrastructure” if this is representative of the larger direction Proton as a whole is going, it’s a massive change not just to their infra but also to their legal strategy and their entire decade long marketing strategy and brand identity (I’m guessing that’s l large part of why they buried the lede in a product announcement instead of announcing it on its own). It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out --- ## Post 37 by @jonah — 2025-07-24T17:40:12Z > [@arise1984](#): > > Interested to know too what others think is the “lesser devil” countries in the EU? To be perfectly clear my issues with Germany (and the Netherlands) mainly stem from technical problems I have with hosting infrastructure there, and a lot of that comes from being strongly opposed to centralization. Centralization _does_ present a legitimate privacy problem, but Proton moving to Germany certainly would not be enough to make me recommend _against_ Proton. I think any EU country provides a perfectly adequate jurisdiction for a service like Proton, and Germany clearly would have many practical benefits from their business perspective. If I were to make a list, I wouldn’t be opposed to Czechia or even Poland, over in Eastern Europe. Sweden or Finland up north wouldn’t be bad either. I would be _somewhat_ opposed to France, which has a poor history of introducing sketchy laws, even though their recent attack on E2EE thankfully failed to pass. Out of all the countries in the world, Iceland is probably the one I hear the most positive things about when it comes to privacy in tech/hosting, but they are not in the EU technically, and also (speaking from personal experience) it is pretty impractical to host there. --- ## Post 38 by @cgrams — 2025-07-24T18:35:27Z I agree. Code as free speech and strong culture of individualism, combined with US Agencies having more legal constraints for domestic surveillance, make US a better choice. I am more interested to see where they go because a lot of Proton suite is “we pinky promise to not do bad things” rather than technical promises. Their VPN requires pinky promise, their non-proton to proton emails require pinky promise, and their wallet and AI require pinky promise. There is no meticulous engineering like Apple private compute, MPR, etc. I do not think they have any place to go that would serve them better unless they improve the product. For far too long Proton has sold the comfort of privsec instead of actual privsec, their reckoning comes. I also have a strong feeling that they will go to Germany or France, if not for nothing other than to be closer to power center of EU bureaucrats so that they can sell them the “sovereign cloud”. --- ## Post 39 by @trlcnmd — 2025-07-24T21:02:49Z Also, they have been moving kind of secretly, haven’t they? However, it’s not a significant threat if you really consider it; at least I don’t envision it the way you do. In particular, the E2EE tools they offer provide “universal” level of security, so it shouldn’t pose that much of a problem. This was a necessary response from them to those proposals, and while the transition will be gradual, they are indeed relocating, and understandably, the unknown can be intimidating. They have been growing the reputation they have for a reason thought, but being a spectator in this is entertaining because, involuntarily, we raise good points even if we can’t see the same “bigger picture”. I’m going to say that, alone in some fundamental part, these points that we are getting across are going to affect some execs in hopefully the right direction. Every time some ground is shaken then… I’m always going to reach this precise URL [What country is Standard Notes located in?](http://standardnotes.com/help/39/what-country-is-standard-notes-located-in#:~:text=Standard%20Notes%20is,laws%20of%20mathematics) just to reassure myself :rofl: --- ## Post 40 by @iluvprivacy — 2025-07-24T22:58:19Z I’m curious as to why not Iceland? I’m hearing that they’re good with privacy laws. If it’s the lack of infrastructure, maybe Proton can fundraise. --- ## Post 41 by @iluvprivacy — 2025-07-24T23:01:25Z I’ve heard nothing but good stuff about Iceland’s legal framework. So why not host there? Surely, Iceland’s government would try to lure companies like Proton to set up shop there? The EU and Canada are slowly moving towards US-style surveillance. It’s scary. If the Icelandic legal framework is legit and respects privacy, perhaps companies like Proton can engage in discussions on what’s needed to set up shop there. --- ## Post 42 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2025-07-24T23:05:09Z He mentioned Iceland in the last paragraph. Personal opinion, I love Iceland but have you been to Iceland during winter? A few hours of sun, if any during bad weather, it isn’t a big country with many qualified resources as well and is a very unique language. --- ## Post 43 by @iluvprivacy — 2025-07-24T23:08:36Z Once you set up the infrastructure there, then you don’t have to live there if you don’t want to. I’ve only transited at KEF, but I’m under no illusion that Iceland is like France. Obviously, one would rather live in France than Iceland. We also live in an age of remote work. --- ## Post 44 by @anon64393658 — 2025-07-24T23:57:25Z I expect the pitchforks, but my idea has less pushback than I expected. If anything there seems to be a consensus that on the technical merits it does make sense but privacy people think US jurisdiction is “icky”. If anything it’s clear that proton moving to the U.S. actually does make sense based on **facts** but people oppose it based on _vibes_. People complain about FISA/FVEY but again the laws in most European countries provide the same powers to those governments. Even the supposed pro-privacy regulations in the EU are not much more than placebos. On top of that, many countries there (like Germany) have infestations of Huawei products in their network infrastructure. --- ## Post 45 by @iluvprivacy — 2025-07-25T00:44:42Z So Proton is secretive about its presence and the location of its critical infrastructure? Interestingly, being based in the US isn’t an issue for Signal. So it’s not the end of the world for Proton, but what are the safeguards and how will they deal with US authorities? --- ## Post 46 by @OhNoes — 2025-07-25T01:32:55Z Yeah, certainly for mail, Germany is not a good option. Just like Tuta, Proton could be forced to log realtime traffic (ingoing and outgoing mail in plain text) by law enforcement. A judge needs to sign off on this, but there are statistics that suggest that requests rarely get denied. For the state of Berlin, [in twelve years not one got denied](https://netzpolitik.org/2020/telefonueberwachung-2019-in-berlin-wurde-seit-zwoelf-jahren-kein-antrag-auf-ueberwachung-von-telefon-oder-internet-abgelehnt/). Not sure if the situation in other EU countries is any better. It’s gonna be interesting to see, where Proton is heading. --- ## Post 47 by @iluvprivacy — 2025-07-25T02:03:16Z Then why is Tuta recommended?! --- ## Post 48 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-25T02:07:31Z A company cannot share any info if they don’t have any way to decrypt it. The tool and such products by design do not and cannot store or track any info on users in an unencrypted manner. And the users hold the keys, the services do not. And hence, even with a court order, no one can do anything or close to anything. Also, do not take every comment by anyone to be the truth always and in the way it is said. There’s often a lot of nuance and whatnot to each. The entire discussion should always be holistically evaluated with and against what’s actually true, law wise, tech wise, and policy wise. --- ## Post 49 by @anon64393658 — 2025-07-25T02:21:50Z They would deal with US authorities the same way they deal with the authorities of any country. Respond to legal requests. The whole point of a service like Proton Mail is that the data is E2EE at the client. So a legal data request is no threat because all that will be turned over is encrypted data. --- ## Post 50 by @OhNoes — 2025-07-25T02:50:05Z Well, it’s a good email provider and they fight the requests as good as they can. They did not simply accept the ruling, but [eventually lost](https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/08/german-secure-email-provider-tutanota-forced-to-monitor-an-account-after-regional-court-ruling/). The [Bundesgerichtshof decision](https://www.heise.de/news/Bundesgerichtshof-Sicherer-E-Mail-Dienst-Tutanota-muss-Ueberwachung-ermoeglichen-6051834.html) was the final one as far as I remember. It’s important to keep in mind that the data they already encrypted is safe. With a court order, companies can be forced to do realtime monitoring of ingoing and outgoing traffic, this would then be unencrypted in plaintext. This will usually go for up to 3 months based on the order and can possibly extended. Based on the [statistics on their site](https://tuta.com/de/blog/transparency-report), the cases where they are forced to do this monitoring are below 50 or so a year. So its not like they are forced to do mass surveillance on their userbase. I personally think it’s something to keep in mind when using Tuta and other German services. I still use the service and I hope they’ll be around for a long time. --- ## Post 51 by @anon64393658 — 2025-07-25T03:10:56Z I think the safest assumption, for any service, is that any data that is not encrypted is being collected by _someone_. For services based in Germany, the someone is likely the CCP thanks to the Huawei equipment the Germans allowed to be installed over direct U.S. objections. Something the Germans (and others) are now coming to regret. --- ## Post 52 by @SwampTrainer — 2025-07-25T05:47:36Z I did see somewhere else that Finland and Germany were their two prospective sites. Though, this might also be a big public stance to get the Swiss govt to not pass their stupid anti-privacy law. Can’t be a bluff because they need to actually move if that law passes. --- ## Post 53 by @shadowwwind — 2025-07-25T08:47:38Z That is cell network equipment I believe. TLS exists, huawai does not have plain text access. And I would doubt that they risk getting caught spying on every German. --- ## Post 54 by @beantaco — 2025-07-25T09:13:12Z Let’s say Proton moves out of Switzerland to the EU. Then what would they do if or when the EU passes a similar law? Mass surveillance laws spreading worldwide, I fear this musical chairs game will be expensive and eventually become futile for companies like Proton. I wonder how Nym and Threema will respond to the proposed law. --- ## Post 55 by @yes — 2025-07-25T15:41:04Z > **Proton on Reddit:** > > > [Some context: Proton’s infrastructure is being diversified to Europe, so if the Swiss legal revision that we are opposing succeeds, Proton can’t be held hostage by Switzerland by having all of our immovable server infrastructure stuck in the country. All of Proton, including Lumo, remains under Swiss jurisdiction as of right now, so all of our services still benefit from the same, current protections.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/s/pAjUBK3yt6) --- ## Post 56 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-25T15:49:12Z Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what permanent moves will be made and what that will end up meaning. All this discourse on this particular matter feels like some things are in limbo and iffy. --- ## Post 57 by @anonymous372 — 2025-07-25T19:06:09Z The ProtonTeam [explained](https://redlib.tux.pizza/r/ProtonMail/comments/1m8n3yv/proton_is_moving_most_of_its_physical/n538pvf/) that they are moving out in advance because > if the Swiss legal revision that we are opposing succeeds, Proton can’t be held hostage by Switzerland by having all of our immovable server infrastructure stuck in the country. @nym-product , what is your opinion on moving out of Switzerland in advance? --- ## Post 59 by @jonah — 2025-07-25T22:30:20Z 3 posts were split to a new topic: [Proton VPN Server Count](/t/proton-vpn-server-count/29457) --- ## Post 60 by @Default — 2025-07-27T03:43:16Z Iceland is No.1 in Limits on Content (least) on the Freedom House’s [Freedom on the Net](https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores?type=fotn) ranking. If this means the freest, it would be a good choice. Finland also ranks high in terms of civil liberties but is a EU member state. Just don’t see any point in relocating to an EU country. --- ## Post 61 by @anon55464882 — 2025-07-27T06:29:53Z The Freedom House list is more about free expression, censorship and infrastructure quality than actual privacy rights. Sure, some of that overlaps and can matter for privacy too, but really only some points deal directly with it in their scoring. So as a measure of privacy laws, it’s not that meaningful. --- ## Post 62 by @awev — 2025-07-27T09:41:10Z If you use the Max Security feature of the Proton VPN service you may of noticed that you are now connecting to “Fastest country -insert\_country\_name\_herre via Iceland” instead of “. . . via Switzerland” nowadays. I had noticed that for a couple weeks, and was wondering about that. --- ## Post 63 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-27T11:52:24Z [The Tuta snark continues!](https://x.com/TutaPrivacy/status/1949134868786343993) ![TUTA SNARK_002](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/8/850cc097da9276c7d15f44724d351e56de683a63.jpeg) --- ## Post 64 by @yes — 2025-07-27T12:18:44Z Has Proton ever posted anything about Tuta? I’m genuinely curious. It’s childish behaviour for companies like Proton and Tuta to make posts like this. --- ## Post 65 by @faxe — 2025-07-27T12:22:40Z Yeah it’s really a shame, I guess many people would prefer seeing them collaborate to implement cross provider e2ee between proton and tuta or something in the likes. --- ## Post 66 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-27T13:47:41Z > [@yes](#): > > Has Proton ever posted anything about Tuta? I’m genuinely curious. It’s childish behaviour for companies like Proton and Tuta to make posts like this. To the extent that privacy companies such as Proton and Tuta like to throw snark at surveillance capitalism companies like Google, it doesn’t surprise me that they would through some friendly snark at each other. Personally, for me, the snark thrown at Google, Meta, and their ilk is absolutely justified. I have mixed feelings about privacy companies throwing shade at each other. It is not clear to me who started it, but I have always wondered why in its privacy alternatives recommendations, Tuta would always omit Proton. And to my understanding, they did that because Proton would always omit them in their recommendations, so it seems like Proton started it, though I am not 100% sure. Either way, I do think it is weird that Lumo would have biases toward Proton, and as a result distort the truth. --- ## Post 67 by @mangomango — 2025-07-27T14:16:12Z French article : [L'entreprise technologique genevoise Proton gèle ses investissements en Suisse - rts.ch - Suisse](https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2025/article/l-entreprise-technologique-genevoise-proton-gele-ses-investissements-en-suisse-28951379.html) Google translated : [L'entreprise technologique genevoise Proton gèle ses investissements en Suisse - rts.ch - Suisse](https://www-rts-ch.translate.goog/info/suisse/2025/article/l-entreprise-technologique-genevoise-proton-gele-ses-investissements-en-suisse-28951379.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp) > Proton prévoit aussi un investissement de plus d’un milliard de francs d’ici la fin de la décennie pour concurrencer Google en Europe. Là, les 900 millions restants pourraient être réinvestis à Genève. Proton ne quittera la Suisse que si elle y est forcée, a souligné son patron. DeepL : > Proton also plans to invest over a billion francs by the end of the decade to compete with Google in Europe. The remaining 900 million francs could be reinvested in Geneva. Proton will not leave Switzerland unless it is forced to do so, stressed its boss. --- ## Post 68 by @anonymous372 — 2025-07-27T16:45:24Z > [@yes](#): > > Has Proton ever posted anything about Tuta? > **[Proton Mail versus Tuta (Tutanota) encryption | Proton](https://proton.me/blog/proton-vs-tuta-encryption)** > > Here's a close look at Proton Mail vs Tuta's encryption to break down the differences. > **[Proton Mail vs Tutanota: Encrypted email comparison | Proton](https://proton.me/mail/proton-mail-vs-tutanota)** > > Which is the better encrypted email service, Proton Mail or Tutanota? Read our in-depth review to find out. --- ## Post 69 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-29T14:33:35Z They’re at it again! It’s not clear to me that what Tuta is saying here is actually true. At least not until Switzerland actually changes its laws, if they ever do. > **[🚨Proton Mail announces it’s moving out of #Switzerland 🚨 #swiss #swissprivacy...](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t6yldYzAZ9E)** > > As it turns out, EU privacy is better than Swiss Privacy after all. 🔐🇪🇺Proton Mail has announced it will move most of its infrastructure out of Switzerlan... Just realized they wrote a whole blog post linked in their video: > **[Switzerland plans surveillance worse than US | Tuta](https://tuta.com/blog/switzerland-surveillance-plan)** > > Revision of Swiss surveillance law VÜPF would directly target VPN & encrypted chat and email providers based in Switzerland. --- ## Post 70 by @anon57862721 — 2025-07-29T14:43:12Z All this talk about EU privacy being better. With all the recent proposals and changes coming to Europe given the few recent stories posted on here, this bragging is going to come back and bite them. Mark my words. --- ## Post 71 by @KevPham — 2025-07-29T15:03:15Z Here before Tuta sovereign-washes themselves despite the implementation of Chat Control and mandated E2EE backdoors! Oh wait. --- ## Post 72 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-29T16:09:07Z I do find it interesting and disappointing that other privacy companies in Switzerland are not commenting about the law that is being proposed. Companies like Tresorit for example. Yes, they don’t necessarily have a product that would force them to share data, but since they are in the privacy business, they should take a stand. Not taking a stand in their position is cowardly. If Tuta and other companies believe the EU protects privacy better than Switzerland, I don’t have a problem with them defending that position. The question is, is it actually true? And are all EU countries protected equally? I’m not sure about the former, and I am confident that the latter isn’t true After reading Tuta’s blog post, I have more respect for them. I’m glad they are taking a stand against Switzerland’s invasive surveillance law proposals, and it is clear that they have been doing it for over a decade. It’s not just an opportunity to one-up Proton. Moreover, given that Switzerland has been introducing more surveillance laws since the early 2010, I cannot imagine that Proton has not considered moving before the latest law proposal was introduced. --- ## Post 73 by @jonah — 2025-07-29T16:11:41Z Tresorit is a Swiss government project. I have seen other Swiss companies like Nym speak out against this. --- ## Post 74 by @PurpleDime — 2025-07-29T18:44:22Z I had no idea Tresorit was a Swiss government project. I just read about them on Wikipedia, it appears that they didn’t start as a government project. They were a traditional company until the Swiss post office bought a majority stake, and now it seems they own the company entirely. I guess that explain why they haven’t taken a stance. But still, government institutions can disagree on new policy proposals. In Tuta’s post that I linked above, they mentioned that Switzerland passed a law in the 2010s that requires ID for sending mail. That is alarming, and when you consider that the Swiss Post office owns Tresorit, I guess we should assume they support surveillance to some degree. I’m glad other Swiss companies are taking a stand, though. --- ## Post 75 by @Laitinlok — 2025-08-01T15:49:53Z They should take a look at Seychelles, no retention laws for emails and VPN and all digital communications. --- ## Post 76 by @solidsnake — 2025-08-01T20:21:01Z I’d be cautious about Proton moving to Germany. The proposed modernization of the Federal Police Act raises significant privacy concerns that could undermine Proton’s core values. The new Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) is making a new attempt to allow the federal police to use state Trojans and thus also to be able to monitor unsuspected persons preventively. According to the proposal, the federal police would be allowed to eavesdrop on digital communications, such as encrypted messengers like WhatsApp, Signal, or Threema, as well as internet phone calls and video calls. While the law isn’t final, it shows a clear trend in German security policy that is at odds with the privacy and security that Proton and any other privacy respecting project promises its users. Moving to Germany under these circumstances could severely damage user trust. He also intends to review Palantir’s nationwide usage. - Sources: [https://www.heise.de/news/Dobrindt-Gesetzentwurf-Bundespolizei-soll-Handys-und-Rechner-hacken-duerfen-10507629.html](https://www.heise.de/news/Dobrindt-Gesetzentwurf-Bundespolizei-soll-Handys-und-Rechner-hacken-duerfen-10507629.html) - [https://netzpolitik.org/2025/referentenentwurf-wir-veroeffentlichen-das-neue-bundespolizei-gesetz/](https://netzpolitik.org/2025/referentenentwurf-wir-veroeffentlichen-das-neue-bundespolizei-gesetz/) - (Please try to translate it. I haven’t found an English article yet.) It would be effective to choose an EU location that is not characterised by a high degree of political or social concentration as Jonah already suggested in this thread. --- ## Post 77 by @n_n — 2025-08-02T11:29:02Z The main reason I decided to pay for ProtonVPN is their secure-core servers in Switzerland. Not only they actually owned their data-center (comparing with “owned” servers of other VPN providers, who still place them in data-centers out of their control), but they do really have their own internet provider (AS) in Switzerland. It was a killer feature, no other VPN has anything like that. Couple of months ago all my connections through Proton-owned-CH servers stopped working. I was using wg configs with strict firewall rules for leak-protection, and it plays badly, because solution was not as simple as hitting “Choose other server” button. At that time I wasn’t physically able to change setup to use other servers quickly enough, so my family left without any internet access for quite a long time. My relatives didn’t have any desire for a VPN in the first place, but I convinced them it was a good thing and worth some slower ping, some captchas, some completely blocked internet-resourses and some dollars. But after that situation I decided that I won’t pay for the next year. Now I understand that it was probably caused by their migration process (or not). Anyway, this owned-infrastructure advantage is gone now, and I see even less sense in paying for ProtonVPN. Maybe if they move to some offshore country, with their reputation it would still be a good VPN choice, but it was clearly stated they are moving to EU, and I don’t see how it makes things any better. --- ## Post 78 by @solidsnake — 2025-08-02T11:48:12Z > [@n_n](#): > > but it was clearly stated they are moving to EU, and I don’t see how it makes things any better. The GDPR is an advantage when used effectively. Switzerland is not subject to such strict rules, even though its data protection laws are theoretically similar in some respects. --- ## Post 79 by @n_n — 2025-08-02T12:10:57Z Switzerland jurisdiction is their main marketing point, I believe. Together with their CERN legacy for some reason, lol. They actively positioned Switzerland as country that clearly better for a VPN provider than any other country. I believed them. There are tons of EU-based VPN providers, some are pretty decent and reputable, and I don’t see any reasons to pay for Proton, when there is Mullvad, which has more advanced features. Aside for the price at the sale maybe. But looking at the direction EU is going, I’m inclined to buy from some cheap and reputable enough provider based in some 3rd world (non-authoritarian) country. Or just to stop using VPN completely. --- ## Post 80 by @solidsnake — 2025-08-02T13:27:55Z Yes, of course you can choose other VPN solutions. However, Proton’s Business model is based on selling a variety of products as an ecosystem. They do not specialise in a single product. Ensuring the security, privacy and quality of all these products is a huge undertaking, which is why selecting a suitable new location is so important. Unlike Google, for example, Proton does not have such an easy source of income from simply analysing and selling large amounts of user data, which, unfortunately, is very valuable. --- ## Post 81 by @mangomango — 2025-08-02T19:25:39Z > [@jonah](#): > > Swiss government Source? It is exaggerated to say so, even if the Swiss Post (which is a private company now) is detained by the state), because of the special status of the Swiss Post. The Swiss government owns Swiss Post only to the extent that it is its sole shareholder. DeepL says it’s legal status translates to “public limited company”. --- ## Post 82 by @jonah — 2025-08-02T19:31:45Z > [@mangomango](#): > > The Swiss government owns Swiss Post only to the extent that it is its sole shareholder. Yes, that is how ownership works… --- ## Post 83 by @mangomango — 2025-08-03T08:45:45Z What I meant is that Tresorit is NOT a Swiss government project. It is a project of a PRIVATE company that belongs to the government. --- ## Post 84 by @anon57862721 — 2025-08-03T08:55:31Z If it is under the government’s control, what practical difference does it make? --- ## Post 85 by @mangomango — 2025-08-03T11:28:08Z There is a company between Tresorit and the government. Decisions are not taken by the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) but by the executives of the Post. --- ## Post 86 by @anon57862721 — 2025-08-03T13:23:53Z > [@mangomango](#): > > but by the executives of the Post. Who presumably are obligated to listen to the Government because they oversee it all even when disagreements occur. I still fail to understand your POV. --- ## Post 87 by @mangomango — 2025-08-03T18:46:00Z The government is not running the day by day operations so it is different from most government programs. --- ## Post 88 by @anon57862721 — 2025-08-03T19:04:00Z And you can prove that? --- ## Post 89 by @mangomango — 2025-08-03T19:58:11Z Can’t you see the Swiss government and Tresorit are two different things, even when the first owns the latter? They have their own offices, they don’t work in Swiss government offices, there is zero branding of the Swiss government in Tresorit, nor does the Swiss government speak anywhere of Tresorit. They have their own press office, their own recruiting teams, their own budget, teams, domain name, etc. (Yes the money comes from the Swiss State (100℅ shareholder) but THEY manage it, apart from the budget of the rest of the Swiss administration. Even if they depend from the government and that the DETEC can take decisions impacting Tresorit, this is obviously not an official project offered and managed by the Swiss government! There is several levels between Tresorit and the State: - The Swiss state - Swiss Post LTD - Post CH Digital Services Ltd - Tresorit --- ## Post 90 by @shadowwwind — 2025-08-04T07:49:46Z That is entirely on Tuta, Proton uses PGP and already is interoperable with other email PGP setups. Tutas encryption is not interoperable. --- ## Post 91 by @ignoramous — 2025-12-13T18:47:09Z > [@mangomango](#): > > There is several levels between Tresorit and the State: The bureaucracy exists for plebs like you and I, not for when the powers-that-be want to get things done. > [@xe3](#): > > it’s a massive change not just to their infra but also to their legal strategy I’m always wary of these providers selling jurisdictions (as Jonah points out above, Signal, for example, has no trouble being in the US even though it has state actors like the US in its _threat model_, but of course, Signal is an outlier; folks like Joshua Lund know what they’re doing). For instance, iVPN’s [“legal strategy”](https://archive.vn/OiZvd) is selling the fact that they’re based in Gibraltar ([most UK laws](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/the-uk-government-forced-apple-to-remove-advanced-data-protection-what-does-this-mean-for-you/25351/3) apply anyway), but their Google Developer entity[[1]](#footnote-127164-1) is based in Switzerland. So, are they or are they not subject to Swiss laws like Proton VPN is? * * * 1. Privatus GmbH, Baarerstrasse 82, 6300 Zug, Switzerland. [↩︎](#footnote-ref-127164-1) --- ## Post 92 by @anon42475305 — 2025-12-14T21:23:59Z 5 posts were split to a new topic: [Signal escrowed app signing keys](/t/signal-escrowed-app-signing-keys/33836)