No such thing as 'Swiss Privacy'?

jackFang

Not directly related to GOS, but privacy concept in general. I am not surprised by the news, but its a good read if you believe your data is secured just because it resides in one particular country

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/swiss-government-accused-of-massive-online-surveillance/49117880

Jobloggs

Just yesterday, I tried to open a second email account with a service in Switzerland that says it's privacy centred. They now require a phone number to register. I emailed them to query this and got the story how they were open to "abuse" and had to change the policy. I replied and said I would no longer be recommending Swisscows,com to anyone again.

raccoondad

Jobloggs TBF as someone who host public internet services, I understand a sysadmin not wanting to deal with abuse. Hell, you could get your IP/domain blacklisted by major email servers if you get enough rep on something like IPAbuse

ErnestThornhill

Yeah. Everything you read online nowadays is true.

Murcielago

ErnestThornhill
Sarcasm or dystopia? 🤔

jackFang

ErnestThornhill I can't seem to be able edit main post, this is more about what [deleted] mentioned.

Assume zero trust is the best strategy, even for this article as you mentioned - we don't know if it's true or not

ErnestThornhill

Murcielago Sarcasm. 😅

Murcielago

I recommend reading (and translating) the original article - it is much more comprehensive and in-depth:

https://www.republik.ch/2024/01/09/der-bund-ueberwacht-uns-alle

Jobloggs

raccoondad I get that but giving out your phone number is hardly private - which is what they advertise There are other services that don't require a phone number and an email will do just fine.

[deleted]

I would say always assume zero trust, whether it comes to sharing your private information via public services or any above mentioned claims without a smidge of proof.

Constant

Imo the only government that won't spy on their citizen is a government without the resources to do so.
However the sad part is that the Swiss people voted for this surveillance act to counter terrorism 🫠

Murcielago

Constant

Technically they voted for it, right. But one of the core theses of the article is that the authorities appeased the voting population during the referendum campaign and said:

that there would be no mass surveillance a la NSA
Swiss citizens will not be affected by cable reconnaissance either at home or abroad

According to the authors of the article, these statements by the intelligence service are proven untrue by court documents and official correspondence. (Whether one should trust blindly the statements of intelligence services is a different issue - nevertheless not a prime example of democracy when a population is knowingly lied to by the state.)

The article once again underlines the importance of the Zero Trust already mentioned here by @[deleted] and @ErnestThornhill :

Governments and laws change - just because a country is a privacy-friendly jurisdiction today, it doesn't have to be forever.

ErnestThornhill

jackFang For sure.

mmmm

This whole premise is conflating privacy laws with government sponsored shady activity. It's not the same thing. ALL govs will go to the ends of the earth to attempt the type of thing that the article describes, and will do so operating above whatever laws are in place. Conversely, whilst in some circumstances this makes such laws potentially null, Swiss privacy laws are still among the best of any country.

Blastoidea

mmmm

If they are “spying on you” surveiling you, or gathering intelligence about you, the laws are pretty much irrelevant, aren’t they?

Unless, of course, you can prove your innocence.

mmmm

Blastoidea

That's why I said this:

mmmm whilst in some circumstances this makes such laws potentially null

Nonetheless, it's a different conversation. Laws are laws, and theirs are among the best privacy wise. Government shenanigans exist in all countries, regardless on whether the system states it's privacy friendly.

The fact that governments feel they have the right operate above the laws that citizens have to follow, unimpeded, is a massive issue, but it's rather unrelated to whether or not Switzerland has strong privacy laws or not, considering the above fact.

X43

You missing the point. Most realistic concern is a request from foreigin country to hand over or log data for specific person. Proton does this thousands of times a year.

Hathaway_Noa

X43 They did this more than 2000 times last year i think.

Murcielago

Many of the companies often recommended here in the forum respond to such requests and disclose this (if they are allowed to).

Some examples:
https://proton.me/legal/transparency
https://tuta.com/blog/transparency-report/
https://signal.org/bigbrother/
https://threema.ch/en/transparencyreport
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised

I think it would be an exaggerated expectation that such companies, as much as they care about data protection and security, violate the laws that apply to them.

That's why Zero Knowlege is so important.

leafnose

Those revelations can also merely be the tip of the iceberg. Don’t forget they’re always several steps ahead.
It’s comfortable to think that this scheme is the Swiss state’s initiative; however, with some – salutary – distance, we could also infer that it’s simply the cost of residing in the U.S. sphere of influence. One corollary would be that the consequences are deeper.
At this point, I would not consider Switzerland as not being one of the Eyes.
Strong privacy laws are what they are: laws. But when one country outsource a part of its mass surveillance to another one, those laws become a mere facade. It may still protect people most of the time, but we do not know what the threshold is.
That’s when the zero trust concept is no longer only IT related, but also political.