Swiss secure email provider Proton Technologies AG has been forced to defend itself after providing an internet address of a French climate activist to authorities despite having a no-IP address logging policy.

ProtonMail, founded in 2014, is one of the leading privacy-focused email services online and promotes itself as providing secure email communication. The service offers end-to-end encryption coupled with “Swiss privacy,” as strict Swiss privacy laws also protect the service.

The issue here is that part of ProtonMail’s privacy pledge is that it does not log IP addresses. TechCrunch reported today that despite ProntonMail having a policy of not logging IP addresses, an IP address from a ProtonMail user ended up in the hands of French police and led to the arrest of a climate activist.

In an extensive post, Andy Yen, founder and chief executive of ProtonMail, explained what happened and noted that it’s deeply concerned about this case and deplores that the legal tools for serious crimes are being used in this way.

The explanation was, at its core, quite simple. ProtonMail was forced to provide the IP address after receiving a legally binding order from Swiss authorities. However, that does not mean that ProtonMail was and continues to log user IP addresses, but was forced to log the IP address from the climate activist after receiving the court order.

“Under Swiss law, Proton can be forced to collect information on accounts belonging to users under Swiss criminal investigation, Yen explained. “This is obviously not done by default, but only if Proton gets a legal order for a specific account.”

Yen said that under no circumstances can ProtonMail’s encryption be bypassed and that the company does not give data to foreign governments because that’s illegal under Swiss law. “We only comply with legally binding orders from Swiss authorities,” Yen added. “Swiss authorities will only approve requests which meet Swiss legal standards (the only law that matters is Swiss law).”

Though unable to change Swiss law, ProtonMail will be making updates to its website to clarify its obligations in cases of criminal prosecution.

To avoid any potential for a traceable IP address to be generated, Yen recommends users employ the service through the ProtonMail “onion” site, the site only accessibly through the Tor browser. The site sits on an overlay network not able to be accessed by a regular browser in an area of the internet perhaps best known as the dark web. Most importantly, because of the overlay network, IP addresses are not linked to an individual.

Image: ProtonMail