What a leap backward in terms of privacy and security. Switzerland is mulling changes to its notoriously privacy-oriented digital security laws that would force Switzerland-based tech firms—including many VPNs—to cooperate with sharing customer data with authorities if requested, erasing much of the privacy benefit of using a VPN.
The proposed security law is under public consultation through May 6. If it becomes law, it takes a hammer to the kneecaps of several prominent privacy apps, including Switzerland-based ProtonVPN, one of the best-rated VPNs in my guide to VPNs, and what I consider to be the best free VPN on the market.
what vpns do for you?
VPN stands for virtual private network. Acting as a middleman, it routes all the information exchange between you and other websites’ servers on the internet, in both directions, through a server owned by the VPN service.
Should a website or a bad actor try to follow you across the web, they won’t see your unique, identifiable IP address, only that of the VPN server you’re connected to. Since these are shared servers—any decent VPN will have thousands of servers to choose from—you disappear into the crowd if a data thief or snoop tries to eavesdrop on your digital trail.
Such VPNs as Proton and NymVPN, plus the Threema messaging app, are based in Switzerland. Up until news of this potential legal change, I considered that a major green flag.
Switzerland, which isn’t a member of the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes international surveillance alliances, protects VPNs such as
These alliances enable the sharing of citizens’ online data, so a person using a VPN service located in one signatory country—even if they’re not physically in that country or a citizen of that country—can have their data logs handed over to one of the other signatory countries by request.
Basing a VPN in a country outside the reach of these security alliances removes one potential lever that any of the signatory countries could use to invade a VPN’s privacy.
Here’s hoping that the Swiss put a stop to this privacy-invading change. The world right now needs human rights heroes.
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