> ProtonMail does not voluntarily offer assistance. We only do so when ordered by a Swiss court or prosecutor, as we are obligated to follow the law in criminal cases.
Yes, if ordered by a court - but not voluntarily, which is the claim of the article, italicized, with exclamation points, repeated several times, etc.
My own definition does not matter. Swiss law matters:
'The order may require real-time surveillance to be carried out and the handover of the retained secondary data of telecommunications from past communications (retroactive surveillance).'
The question is not whether ProtonMail has access to user data. (They have, you are absolutely right.) They question is if they perform real-time surveillance, i.e., lawful surveillance (whether voluntarily or not).
No matter what they actually do, they'd be idiots to reply to this, which is why we won't see a reply from them. Doesn't really say anything meaningful.
+In April 2019, at the request of the Swiss judiciary in a case of clear criminal conduct, we enabled IP logging against a specific user account which is engaged in illegal activities which contravene Swiss law. Pursuant to Swiss law, the user in question will also be notified and afforded the opportunity to defend against this in court before the data can be used in criminal proceedings.
Diff from 2019/04/25 to today: ...
-Updated on 13.03.2019
+Updated on 24.04.2019
-ProtonMail is not required to store communications metadata or IP information, as we are exempted from the Swiss Federal Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications (BÜPF) and its accompanying ordinance. Therefore, ProtonMail can apply a policy of collecting as little user information as possible to protect user privacy. To know exactly what kind of metadata your use of ProtoMail creates, please refer to our Privacy Policy. Upon receiving a judicial order, ProtonMail is obliged to provide any user information readily available that would help identify a user that is subject to a criminal investigation that has been validated by Swiss authorities.
+ProtonMail is not required to store communications metadata or IP information, as we are exempted from the Swiss Federal Act on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications (BÜPF) and its accompanying ordinance. Therefore, ProtonMail can apply a policy of collecting as little user information as possible to protect user privacy. To know exactly what kind of metadata your use of ProtoMail creates, please refer to our Privacy Policy. Upon receiving a judicial order, ProtonMail is obliged to provide any user information readily available that would help identify a user that is subject to a criminal investigation that has been validated by Swiss authorities. In addition to the items listed in our privacy policy, in extreme criminal cases, ProtonMail may also be obligated to monitor the IP addresses which are being used to access the ProtonMail accounts which are engaged in criminal activities. Under no circumstances will ProtonMail be able to provide the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages sent on ProtonMail.
1. a law permits compelling a company to produce real-time data (or anything else),
2. a company has that technical capability, and
3. the company in #2 is in a jurisdiction with a law like #1,
you should assume real-time surveillance data will be provided in cases where it is so ordered. You don't need to wait for them to tell you that it is. It can go without saying.
How could it be otherwise? If the guys with the guns show up to demand that data, what else are they gonna do? The Lavabits of the world are incredibly rare, for the exact same reason that Lavabit doesn't exist any more.
They answered your question, please read more carefully:
> ProtonMail does not voluntarily offer assistance. We only do so when ordered by a Swiss court or prosecutor, as we are obligated to follow the law in criminal cases.
