Your Email - It’s Not "Swiss Safe"

If It's Swiss, It's Secure - Swiss Cheese has holes In It, and so does this idea.

I’ve recently had the pleasure (torture) of studying in-depth many, many, many free and paid email solutions, looking for the perfect solution for family, personal and work. As a bit of context, after waking up the need to leave Google for privacy concerns (my phone does not have a single Google application - yay!).  I went first to Proton and stayed there for about a year, as a Visionary client (when I go in, it’s all in).

In the end, I can’t say that Proton was bad, just way more than I needed, and way more expensive than I wanted. Though I will note that exporting out of Proton, and the subsequent attempt to downgrade my account to Unlimited from Visionary, rather than canceling, was quite evil.

(when making high-tier customers press CANCEL, btw, don’t secretly downgrade me to a lesser plan and charge me. I will expose you here for the dozens of bots and half-dozen people who visit to see)

Anyways, in my search for the “perfect” email company for me, I came across a number of companies that pushed the idea that “our servers are in XYZ country (usually Switzerland) and so your data is completely safe. Laws here protect your privacy. (In one famous and extreme case, your data is stored in underground bunkers impervious to nuclear attacks. Good to know in the case all life on the planet is screwed, my email is safe).

Here’s the thing about the above argument (not the bunker) - your data is only safe if the laws protecting them in that country never change. Ever.  In the case the government changes, or new laws are passed, or your country is invaded, your laws and Swiss protection don’t mean anything at all.

So, not really sure why you would push that as a sales point.

Maybe you are relying on the tradition argument - “Our country has never….”  or “We would never….”

I’m not saying that the services that promote this are bad email companies. Far from it; most of them are pretty good.

For those who are attracted by the privacy laws argument, just turn on the toxic world news and count how many countries and governments are now doing things that haven’t been done before. Things that they would “never do”.

And I’m thinking about the democratically run countries.

My point (if any)?

Your information is not secure or private just because it is in a specific country or region. Privacy and security has much more to do with encryption than location.