- Infaniak criticized Proton’s position against a Controversial revision of the Swiss surveillance law
- The amendment would require VPNs and messaging applications to identify and keep user data
- Proton and NYMVPN are ready to leave Switzerland instead of undermining their intimacy and their safety
UPDATE: On June 6, 2025, after publication, Infaniak confirmed to Techradar that the company really opposes the revision of its current form, although it is against total anonymity online. We modify the article to reflect this.
A Swiss Cloud Service, Infaniak, has publicly criticized the Proton privacy firm to promote online anonymity, criticizing the company’s position against a controversial review of the country’s monitoring law.
The amendment would require all VPN services, messaging applications and social networks to identify and keep user data – an obligation which is now limited to mobile networks and internet service providers.
Until now, technology suppliers have expressed their sharing of their concerns against this revision which, according to them, could present a risk to obtain an online encryption and anonymity in Switzerland. The order would also have encountered a strong reaction through political benches.
The CEO of Proton, one of the best VPNs and suppliers of secure email on the market, even compared these new rules to those in place in Russia, promising to leave Switzerland if the new prescription passes. Another Swiss supplier, NYMVPN, also confirmed to Techradar that he was ready to do the same.
What does Infaniak say?
Infaniak is a Cloud Computing company that claims to offer ethical and confidentiality online tools such as web accommodation, cloud storage and now encrypted messaging services.
Speaking during a debate on RadiTelelesuisse (RTS), the director of communication of Infaniak, Thomas Jacobsen, particularly criticized the position of Proton, accusing the proton and similar societies of technological confidentiality pleading for online anonymity to “prevent justice from doing its job”, as indicated by the publication in cooking Switzerland.
Jacobsen has also criticized Proton for having offered free VPN and messaging services, arguing that this allows anyone to stay out of the reach of the police. According to him, criticisms from proton and similar companies are due to the fact that the new rules could potentially end their business model.
New data conservation obligations could, in fact, lead to the end of the VPN without log and other services in Switzerland, such as Proton VPN, Proton Mail, NYMVPN and Threema.
In Switzerland, the new version of the surveillance law aims to make it impossible for Proton, Threema and @ nymproject to operate in Switzerland. We are in the consultation phase. We will fight. https://t.co/bcmbxzipfcMarch 25, 2025
Jacobsen also stressed that “the problem is not so much encryption, but anonymity”.
Unlike similar legislative efforts in Europe promoting the idea of a legitimate stolen door in citizens’ communications, Switzerland has in fact adopted a different and target approach to monitoring metadata.
Metadata include all the details that are not the content, such as IP addresses, location data, horodatages, data size, phone numbers, with whom you spoke and when. As Jacobsen said during another interview with RTS, “the outside of the package is sufficient to do justice”.
However, technologists have long argued that metadata can pose significant confidentiality problems because of its ability to reveal sensitive user information. With the progress of the analysis of the data fueled by AI, the protection of the confidentiality of metadata has become crucial throughout the industry, leading to the creation of tools like NYMVPN and DAITA of Mullvad to protect themselves from these threats.
When approached by Techradar, Jacobsen said that Infaniak is in fact opposed to the Swiss revision in its current form, although it is against total anonymity online.
He said: “We are also opposed to this revision as it is.
Commenting on questions concerning the collection of metadata, Jacobsen should that, in some cases, metadata can make it possible to rebuild models of behavior or communication. “This is why we insist on a strict legal framework, with compulsory judicial monitoring and on targeted, limited, transparent and traceable measures,” he added.
How did the Swiss privacy industry react?
The co-founder and chief of NYM, Alexis Roussel, was one of the online commentators contesting the company’s point of view, in particular concerning the metadata collection.
Speaking to Techradar, Roussel said: “They say that the definition of privacy is to encrypt the message and that the metadata is not important, but that is obsolete. They have turned the whole community upside down.”
Roussel has also challenged the idea of getting rid of anonymity online to facilitate the work of the police, arguing that the application of preventive monitoring measures could undermine democratic values in Switzerland.
He said: “Online anonymity is at the heart of the balance of powers in a democracy. When the government has access to all your metadata, it’s completely reversed.”
As part of the current system, explains Roussel, the government must do a specific investigation to force online services to record all their data. If the new prescription passes, however, this collection of data will become compulsory and preventive for all potential illicit activities.
“An obligation to store the data in case, perhaps a judge asks it – it is not OK,” said Roussel. “It is a war against anonymity, which occurs in Switzerland at the federal level.”
While public consultations ended on May 6, 2025, we will now have to wait and see what the Swiss government decides.
Nevertheless, Roussel confirmed to Techradar that there had been a significant boost of Swiss political parties and companies.
Some cantons, including Geneva, have even called the right to digital integrity as an argument against these rules. Roussel was the main initiative of the initiative which introduced this new right to protect confidentiality and online data from citizens – in Geneva in 2023 and Neuchâtel in 2024 – with more than 90% consensus.
“The chances that the order either reversed either in Parliament or even in the courts is quite high, but they can always push for that,” Roussel told Techradar.
Nevertheless, “this is already a big problem because it creates a bad precedent. No one is going to invest in privacy at the moment in Switzerland,” he added.
