Privacy-focused Proton Mail handed protester data to police

https://www.androidpolice.com/privacy-focused-proton-mail-handed-over-protester-data-to-police/

Publish Date: 2026-03-06 10:27:00

Proton Mail is known for being the email service if you want secure and private communication. But it turns out that even Proton Mail‘s vaunted abilities have limits.

Investigators at the FBI were able to find one of the leaders of an Atlanta protest movement because of information passed to them by Swiss authorities from Proton Mail, according to 404 Media.

Proton Mail still has to adhere to Swiss law

Source: Unsplash.com / Wikipedia.org

Defend the Atlanta Forest (DTAF), also known as “Stop Cop City”, is a protest movement based in Atlanta which opposes the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. The movement has been accused of arson, vandalism and doxing, which members of the FBI were investigating. As part of their investigation, they wanted to know who was behind the “[email protected]” email address that is listed as the primary email address on the official DTAF Facebook page.

Thanks to Proton Mail, they were able to get that information, though it’s fair to note that this was a somewhat convoluted process. In order to get the information, the FBI used a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, or MLAT, to ask the Swiss justice department to request the information from Proton Mail. As Proton is based in Switzerland, it had to give the requested information to the Swiss authorities, who then passed it on to the FBI.

“We want to first clarify that Proton did not provide any…

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