this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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The proposed update to Switzerland’s Ordinance on the Surveillance of Postal and Telecommunications Traffic (VÜPF: Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs) represents a significant expansion of state surveillance powers, worse than the surveillance powers of the USA. If enacted, it would have serious consequences for encrypted services such as Threema, an encrypted WhatsApp alternative and Proton Mail as well as VPN providers based in Switzerland.

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[–] philpo@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Switzerland never had solid privacy laws - and is known for intelligence service overreach for decades.

They had a Stasi like system of "who to imprison" when "the time comes".

They listen to all IP traffic in and out the country - which is concerning in times of traffic pattern analysis. And they are known for their close cooperation with US intelligence services.

Protons (and Threemas) claim of "soo good swiss privacy laws" is nothing more than swiss-washing. And they know it.

Proton has already given away data of its customers (climate activists) to the swiss authorities. And only talked about it when the press got onto it.

[–] SunshineJogger@feddit.org 61 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Why is this world and timeline so hell bent on recreating dystopian sci fi novels from the 80s?

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

two factors:

  1. those novels were warnings about the path we were on
  2. dorkasses like musk and altman missed the allegorical point
[–] SunshineJogger@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Yea, true. And sad. We're fucked

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 28 points 2 days ago

Because they were about late state capitalism.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 days ago

Torment nexus go

[–] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 day ago

It was inevitable. What did you all expect from the country that hoarded all that nazi gold?

switzerland was never a utopia for anybody except corporations, billionaires, and nazis. their "neutrality" was nothing more than an excuse for unregulated capitalism.

[–] bigFab@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

“In a democracy, the right way is to argue, not threaten to leave.” Socialist member of parliament said.

Does this man understand the very first day this law would approve Proton is dead? Do politicians understand privacy at all?

[–] Bubbey@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If I have to fucking switch mail hosts again... what the hell is the point in using proton for privacy and now I'm sure that's going to get ruined.

[–] frosch@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Wasn’t there an announcement from proton a few days back to possibly move their data Centers out of Switzerland because of this?

[–] Bubbey@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

One would hope so, or their fundamental ethics as a company are nonexistent.

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[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I self host mine. Honestly I just self host as much as I can to avoid stuff like this because while many European companies are great you just never know. I was with Tuta but decided to self host, same for when I was using Filen for backups. Hell I'm even self hosting my git repos and search engine now.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Note that this is written by Tuta, Protonmails main concurrent

[–] underline960@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

@poutinewharf commented a screenshot of Proton's post, but the headline was about their AI chatbot, and the news about the Swiss move is buried at the end.

Because of legal uncertainty around Swiss government proposals(new window) to introduce mass surveillance — proposals that have been outlawed in the EU — Proton is moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland. Lumo will be the first product to move.

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Holy shit. An actual interrobang.

This is like finding a shiny.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

First I’m finding out a ligature exists. Awesome.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Tattorack uses octothorpe. It's not very effective!

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago

Where’s that dude who was saying Proton was enabling terrorism for threatening to leave the country?

[–] 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

when legislation removes a whole well know phrase in one fell swoop. Bye bye "swiss bank account"

[–] IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

There’ll be a clause that banks are exempt

[–] Bwaz@lemmy.world 51 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah, yes. The country that formerly let you have anonymous secret bank accounts.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 days ago (3 children)

You account is anonymous only if you have over a billion.

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[–] bort@piefed.world 82 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This would be catastrophic to Proton AG

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 100 points 3 days ago (5 children)

In their AI announcement yesterday they mentioned that they are moving to the EU because of legal protections.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago (8 children)

The region that repeatedly insists on backdoors in any encrypted communications?

[–] yistdaj@pawb.social 8 points 2 days ago

As much as it's dumb, many other places (such as Australia, where I live) are similar at this point.

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[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 33 points 2 days ago

Considering that we might have a World War III or 2nd American Civil War in a decade or two, it would be foolish of Switzerland to not permit encrypted VPN. A stable neutrality is very profitable in a world of uncertainty.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Isnt Switzerland the country that struggled with their covid response because of the direct democracy requirements lacking provisions for such changes...amazing they can figure everything out to hurt the public.

[–] _LordMcNuggets_@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

what covid response? our government simply played on "eigenverantwortung" (personal responsibility). in a country with one of the highest education levels it wasn't difficult to keep a distance of 2 meters during the peak of the pandemic unless you're surrounding yourself with naive people. I was able to go swimming in the lake in the summer, and skiing in the winter while Italy, France and Austria had this banned. weird to think about it but I honestly had a pretty fun time during covid and made some of the best friends to date during it. hell, we even had music festivals and our numbers were not horrible. I think you're thinking of Sweden. happens a lot.

[–] grumpusbumpus@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I visited Switzerland just after the vaccines dropped. The Swiss COVID response far surpassed the response in the United States. They rolled out a nation-wide app for vaccination attestation, and any museum, restaurant, etc. could scan a QR code on someone's phone with a phone. But do they have a scary, socially reactionary subset of their population? Yes.

In some harmful ways they are fanatically culturally conservative. But they also care about community, sustainability, health, the well-being of children, environmental preservation, organization, and self-reliance. Being a small, rich, homogeneous, topographically-isolated country drives these characteristics.

Surveillance State developments are depressing but not surprising.

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[–] percent@infosec.pub 82 points 3 days ago (3 children)

This is the first thing I've ever disliked about Switzerland (not that I know a lot about the country).

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 199 points 3 days ago (16 children)

You've not heard of shady banking, Nazi gold, reluctance to stop dealing with Russia, women not being able to vote until the 70s, and Nestle?

Switzerland gets aggressively simped for online, and there's certainly some nice things about them, but there's also some pretty awful things.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 98 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Those are all very bad, but on the other hand their flag is a big plus.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 47 points 2 days ago

It's also a big red flag.

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[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 days ago

Yeah, the whole "private banking" history thing the EFF seems to lionize in the article was 100% just for serving lucrative international robber barrons and other criminals. It was never about protecting regular citizens privacy.

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[–] themurphy@lemmy.ml 67 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's a reason every billionair has a bank account in Switzerland.

And it's not to pay more taxes. Or to launder less money.

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