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Scroll.in
28-07-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Why a court ban on encrypted email service Proton Mail has sparked digital privacy fears
A two-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court is now hearing a challenge filed by Proton AG, the Swiss company that runs the encrypted email service, Proton Mail. On April 29, a single judge of the high court had directed the Union government to block the service in India, setting off a wave of criticism from digital rights advocates. Many of them told Scroll that the court's ban set a dangerous precedent that threatens the privacy of whistle-blowers, activists, journalists, and others who rely on encryption for more secure communications. They said the court had erred in blaming encryption for Proton's alleged non-cooperation with the Karnataka police in its investigation into online harassment by anonymous culprits through its email service. What did the High Court order say? The case began when a Bengaluru-based organisation approached the High Court after some of its female employees were subjected to prolonged online harassment. The company received a torrent of emails from two Proton Mail accounts containing obscene and abusive content, including morphed images of the employees. The company filed a police complaint and reached out to Proton Mail's abuse team. While Proton disabled the offending accounts, it could not provide the company personally identifiable details of the sender of the mail. This is because, it informed the company, under Swiss law, it could only disclose user data upon receiving a formal legal request from Swiss authorities through established international cooperation channels. The police investigation hit a similar wall. The police told the court that they could not identify the culprit through the mutual legal assistance arrangements between India and Switzerland. However, the judgment didn't clarify what specific steps were taken or where those efforts stalled. Nevertheless, Justice M Nagaprasanna took a stern view of the matter in his judgment. Describing the situation as a 'menace', he noted that Proton Mail had also been used to send bomb threats to schools and even to the Chief Minister of Karnataka. 'The State machinery [is] hamstrung by the absence of enforceable cooperation from Proton AG,' Nagaprasanna observed. 'This Court fails to understand the complacency of the Union of India in not taking action towards blocking the Proton Mail…' Concluding that the court could not remain a 'mute spectator', the judge directed the Union government to initiate proceedings to block Proton Mail in India under the Information Technology Act. 'Troubling precedent' As of July 25, Proton Mail was still accessible in India. While the court's intent to protect the victims of harassment is clear, technology lawyers and digital rights advocates raised concerns about the order's sweeping nature and its wider implications. They argue that blocking an entire service used by many for the criminal acts of a few is a disproportionate response that could undermine digital security for everyone. The order 'sets a troubling precedent,' said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia Pacific Policy Director at Access Now, a digital civil rights organisation. 'It signals that entire encrypted services can be taken down based on allegations linked to a handful of users.' A ban could lead to a domino effect, warned Apar Gupta, lawyer and founder director of the Internet Freedom Foundation. 'Other encrypted platforms could face pressure to weaken their security or risk being blocked,' he explained. 'This approach may inadvertently chill free expression, as journalists, activists and at-risk communities who rely on encrypted communications for safety might feel less secure.' This view was echoed by technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist Mishi Choudhary. 'In today's day of heightened cyber security issues and surveillance, privacy-protecting technologies are more crucial than ever,' she said. Blocking Proton Mail would not eliminate online abuse either, said technologist and interdisciplinary researcher Rohini Lakshané. 'Malicious actors can simply migrate to other encrypted email providers or deploy additional anonymisation techniques,' she said. The fear is that the High Court's order could give cover to authorities to take a heavy-handed approach towards any platform that offers privacy. 'This move will embolden the bureaucracy and the political powers to act first and think later,' cautioned Tanveer Hasan, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, an internet and digital technologies research organisation. As Choudhary noted, 'India cannot be a destination that issues blocking orders at the drop of a hat if investigative authorities aren't able to access some data.' Gupta warned that the order would create legal uncertainty for overseas service providers. 'Those in jurisdictions with strict privacy laws could be caught between home-country obligations and Indian court demands, deterring them from offering services in India,' he said. Encryption versus user identification A key point of contention is the court's conflation of the protection of a message's content with the ability to identify a user. The court identified encryption as a factor for the police's failed investigation – without explaining how. Encrypted services like Proton Mail are prevented from seeing the content of messages sent on their platforms, but may still access user metadata, such as internet protocol address – a unique alphanumerical identifier assigned to each computer connected to the internet – from which an account was created or accessed. Nikhil Narendran, a partner at the law firm Trilegal, argued that the ban was based on a misunderstanding of the technology 'Encryption only protects the content of a message but does not prevent a receiver or sender from disclosing it wilfully,' he explained. 'It also doesn't prevent a company from disclosing user information once the content is disclosed.' This metadata can be a crucial tool for law enforcement to trace the origin of a criminal act. In 2021, Proton Mail handed over the internet protocol address of French Proton Mail users to the French police upon an order by the Swiss government. 'So, the idea that Proton Mail is immune to legal process is simply not true,' Chima said. Sharveya Parasnis, a journalist at the technology policy portal Medianama, questioned the court's invocation of encryption. 'I don't know if the case is about encryption as much as it is about the obligation of foreign companies to comply with Indian law enforcement requests for user data,' he said. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 mandate that online platforms 'enable the identification' of anyone communicating through the platform upon a government or court order. The right way forward? Experts pointed out that a blanket ban failed the three-part test for restricting fundamental rights laid down by the Supreme Court in its landmark privacy judgment in 2018. Any restriction must be lawful, necessary and, crucially, proportionate. 'Here, less intrusive options clearly existed,' Chima said. He and other experts Scroll spoke with argued that instead of resorting to bans, Indian authorities should strengthen and use existing legal channels. India and Switzerland are both signatories to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, a formal mechanism for requesting and obtaining evidence for criminal investigations. The treaty should be reformed 'so investigators can lawfully obtain data in a timely manner,' suggested Gupta. 'Regulators can also establish clear, transparent protocols for engaging with encrypted services based abroad, and even update outdated agreements to address modern cybercrime.' Rahul Narayan, a partner at the law firm Chandhiok & Mahajan who has expertise in privacy and data protection, batted for more legislative clarity in such situations. 'Precise parameters for when a service may be blocked should be laid down in a legislation, rather than decided on an ad-hoc basis by courts,' he said.
The Hindu
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Karnataka High Court directs Union Govt to block Proton Mail in India
The Karnataka High Court has directed the Union Government to initiate legal proceedings under provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 to block Proton Mail in India. On April 29, Justice M. Nagaprasanna issued the directions while allowing a petition filed by M. Moser Design Associates India Private Limited, Bengaluru. The court also directed the Union Government to block forthwith the offending Uniform Resource Locator (URLs), which are indicated in the petition, till the government initiates and concludes the proceedings to block Proton Mail under Section 69A of the IT Act 2000 read with Rule 10 of the IT Procedure and Safeguards of Blocking of Access to Information by Public Access Rules, 2009. The copy of the complete judgement is yet to be released. The petitioner-company had moved the High Court seeking direction to the government to take legal action against Proton AG, a Switzerland-based company that provides Proton Mail services, based on international agreements by pointing out that Proton's servers are located outside India, and hence it is claiming that it is not bound by Indian laws. The petitioner claimed that Proton's email service allows users to select India as their server location, which gives a false impression that the company is 'operating' from within the Indian territory. The petitioner had filed a complaint with the police in November 2024 alleging that some unknown persons are misusing Proton Mail and were targeting female employees of the petitioner-company by sending obscene, abusive, and derogatory emails containing AI-generated deep-fake images and explicit content. The petitioner had contended that not much progress has been made in the complaint lodged with the police. Police authorities have not utilised the legal assistance agreements and arrangements between India and Switzerland to initiate action against Proton AG based on the First Information Report registered on the petitioner's complaint.
WIRED
27-03-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Vivaldi Partners With Proton to Put a VPN in Your Web Browser
Our favorite VPN service is now integrated into our favorite web browser. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. Learn more. Vivaldi Technologies has announced a new partnership with Proton AG that will integrate the free version of Proton VPN into Vivaldi's web browser, allowing every user a quick and easy way to access a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN protects users' privacy by hiding their real IP address. It acts like a protective tunnel, allowing users to pass through a public network without anyone being able to snoop on their data, whether that's a scammer at the coffee shop or a data-gathering behemoth like Google. Vivaldi and Proton VPN have positioned the partnership as a 'challenge to the dominance of US Big Tech giants,' according to the press release. Vivaldi CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner has long been a critic of the surveillance capitalism model, as far back as his previous browser company, Opera. David Peterson, general manager of Proton VPN, goes further, saying, 'Together, Proton VPN and Vivaldi are setting a new standard that challenges the dominance of tech giants, providing a viable European alternative that helps people retake control of their digital lives.' Vivaldi is a Norwegian company, and Proton is based in Switzerland. Vivaldi, which I've previously called the web's best browser, is already full of privacy features you won't find elsewhere, like an integrated ad blocker, which isn't as robust as what you'll get from add-ons like uBlock, but is nevertheless sufficient for most users, and most importantly, right there in the browser. It also offers integrations with privacy-friendlier search engines like Brave and StartPage (though neither is the default). Vivaldi also has a full email client, calendar, and RSS reader. The new Proton VPN integration fits well with Vivaldi's all-in-one philosophy. Like the other features, if you aren't interested, the new Proton VPN integration stays out of the way. Proton VPN has long topped our Best VPNs guide for its robust security, along with an excellent privacy record and no-logs policy. Proton VPN has been independently audited and maintains a warrant canary page. It has long had the best free VPN offering, which is what's being integrated into Vivaldi. Unlike most services, Proton VPN's free version gives full access to all the regular plan's features. The limitations are that it's only for a single device and only three server locations: Japan, the Netherlands, and the US. Vivaldi tells WIRED that the Proton VPN integration may come to the mobile versions of the browser at some point, but for now, it's only available in Vivaldi's desktop browser. Access is through your Vivaldi account—just log in and you'll see an option to use Proton VPN's free VPN as well as a way to upgrade to a paid version.
