On March 5, 2026, 404 Media reported that Proton Mail handed over payment data for an anonymous email account linked to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta. Swiss authorities passed that data to the FBI via Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The payment trail was enough to identify the person behind the account. They do not appear to have been charged with a crime.
This is the third known instance of Proton providing data that led to the identification of an activist or protester. As a paying Proton customer, I wrote to CEO Andy Yen directly. He responded. What follows is the full exchange, annotated.
To whom it may concern,
I'm a paying Proton customer. I pay you specifically because you market yourselves as the privacy-first alternative; the company that exists because Big Tech won't protect its users from government overreach. So I'd like to understand how that ethos squares with what just came to light in the Stop Cop City case.
According to court records reported by 404 Media, Proton turned over payment data for the defendtheatlantaforest@protonmail.com account to Swiss authorities, who passed it directly to the FBI via MLAT. That payment data was sufficient to identify the person behind the account. The person does not appear to have been charged with a crime.
This is now the third known incident. In 2021, you logged and surrendered the IP address of a French climate activist to authorities via Europol, despite marketing that you don't log IPs by default. You then quietly deleted "we do not keep any IP logs" from your homepage. You also provided a recovery email for a Catalan independence activist to Spanish authorities. Each time, the script is identical: foreign government pressure, Swiss legal compliance, user anonymity destroyed. Interesting that you are always looking to facilitate an increase in government power or violence, and never decrease it.
Meanwhile, the entire legal basis for the Stop Cop City prosecution has collapsed. A Fulton County judge dismissed all RICO charges against 61 defendants in December 2025, ruling the Georgia Attorney General never had the authority to bring them. The FBI search warrant affidavit that prompted the MLAT request to Proton was authored by a Domestic Terrorism squad agent and yet the person whose identity you helped uncover doesn't appear to have been charged with anything. Your data helped the FBI identify someone in a case that a court has since called procedurally illegitimate.
So here are my questions:
I chose Proton because I wanted to put my money where my principles are. Right now, I'm struggling to see why I should continue. "We're better than Gmail" is not a privacy ethos; it's the bare minimum of a privacy-focused anything.
I'm asking you to be honest about what your product actually protects and what it doesn't, and to stop letting your branding write checks your legal department can't cash.
I look forward to a substantive response.
Regards,
Bill
Hi Bill, to be brief, I would say we actually passed the one test that matters.
French case, identity was already known to the police (they were illegally squatting/destroying/robbing a building), not exactly hard to locate, and already previously arrested. They needed Proton email info to build the case against them. Unfortunately for the police we can't decrypt. These people escaped jail time as a result.
Spanish case, again no emails could be decrypted, so they found the person, but no evidence. This person also escaped a jail sentence.
The American case, as you noted, they also escaped jail time.
For 11 years of operating, 100 million users, just 3 cases, and all 3 no jail sentences, I'd say that's an astoundingly good track record.
I find this statement completely insulting: "you are expressing gleeful joy in turning over anti-government protester data......repeatedly"
Each time we defy a court order (and we do this regularly), as a director of the company, I take on personal criminal liability on behalf of our users. If we do this so gleefully and joyfully, why do we sue the Swiss government at substantial personal risk on behalf of users? https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy
Lastly, I think you know (if you actually read the 404media piece, biased as it was), that the request the biden admin sent to switzerland wasn't just about protest activity, but an investigation into a shooting of a police officer where explosive devices were found, which was serious enough to gain approval by Swiss justice.
Best,
Andy
He's right that the encryption held in all three cases. No email content was decrypted. That is a meaningful distinction from what would have happened with Gmail, Outlook, or any other major provider. Credit where it's due.
"Nobody went to jail" is not the metric. The person in the Atlanta case was identified to an FBI Domestic Terrorism squad, subjected to a federal search warrant, and had their anonymous identity burned. All of that happened because payment data from Proton provided the link between an anonymous account and a real person. "They weren't ultimately charged" doesn't undo that exposure. Activists, journalists, and dissidents don't evaluate privacy tools by whether they ultimately avoid prison. They evaluate them by whether they get identified at all. Proton knows this, because it's the exact threat model their marketing is built around.
This framing deserves scrutiny. The January 2023 shooting at the protest site resulted in police killing activist Manuel Paez Teran with 57 rounds. No officers were wearing body cameras. There is no video evidence of return fire. The FBI's own search warrant affidavit did not mention a shooting. The entire RICO prosecution that grew out of this investigation was dismissed by a Fulton County judge in December 2025 as procedurally illegitimate. The question isn't whether Swiss authorities found the allegations serious enough to approve the request. The question is whether Proton independently evaluated those claims or accepted a government's characterization at face value.
This is real. Proton's legal challenges to Swiss surveillance law are documented and meaningful. A 2022 Swiss court ruling that email services are not telecommunications providers, and therefore exempt from certain data retention requirements, came directly from Proton's litigation. The personal liability point is not rhetorical. This matters, and it would be dishonest not to acknowledge it.
404 Media reported from court records. Calling the piece "biased" without identifying a factual error is a deflection. If the reporting contained inaccuracies, the correction is simple: name them. Characterizing the source instead of contesting the facts is a tell, not a rebuttal.
The central question was not addressed. Why does Proton retain payment identifiers in a form that can deanonymize users? Every one of these three incidents traces back to metadata, not content. The encryption did its job. The payment architecture didn't. Proton already offers crypto and cash options, which means they understand that credit card payments create an identity link that sits entirely outside the encryption model. A prominent warning at checkout, something that tells users plainly that paying by credit card permanently ties their real identity to the account, would have prevented all three of these stories. That's a product decision, not a legal question.
Andy,
I respect that you replied personally. That's more than I expected and more than most CEOs would do. So let me engage with your actual points.
The encryption holding is a fair point. I should have given that more weight. In all three cases, no email content was compromised, and that is a real distinction. Acknowledged.
But "nobody went to jail" is not the metric I'm measuring you against.
The person in the Atlanta case was identified to an FBI Domestic Terrorism squad. They were subjected to a federal search warrant. Their anonymous identity was burned. That happened because of data Proton provided. Whether or not charges followed, the exposure itself is the harm. Activists, journalists, and dissidents don't evaluate privacy tools by whether they ultimately avoid prison. They evaluate them by whether they get identified at all. You know this, because it's the exact threat model your marketing is built around.
On the shooting. You're asking me to accept the Swiss authorities' framing that this was an investigation into a shooting of a police officer where explosive devices were found. I'd ask you to consider what actually happened at that site. Police fired 57 rounds into a tent and killed Manuel Paez Teran. No body cameras. No video evidence of return fire. The RICO case that followed has been dismissed as procedurally invalid. The FBI's own affidavit didn't mention a shooting. So when you say Swiss justice found the allegations serious enough to approve the request, my question is simple: did Proton do any independent evaluation, or did you take the government's word for it? Because governments characterize protest movements as terrorism regularly. That's not a hypothetical. It's what happened here.
On the court challenges. I read the blog post. The work you've done pushing back on Swiss surveillance law is real and important, and the personal liability you take on is not nothing. The "gleeful joy" line in my original email was unfair and I withdraw it.
Now, the question you skipped entirely.
Why does Proton retain payment data in a form that can deanonymize users?
You already offer crypto and cash. That means you understand credit card payments create an identity link that sits completely outside your encryption model. Every one of these three incidents traces back to metadata, not content. Your encryption did its job. Your payment architecture didn't.
So why isn't there a clear, impossible-to-miss warning at checkout? Something that tells users plainly: paying by credit card permanently ties your real identity to this account in a way we cannot encrypt or protect. Not buried in a privacy policy. Not explained in a blog post after someone gets burned. Right there at the moment of payment, where it would actually change behavior.
That's a product decision you can make tomorrow. It doesn't require a court ruling or a change in Swiss law. It would have prevented all three of these stories. And it would actually align your product with the promise your marketing already makes.
I'm staying with Proton. Not because I think you're perfect, but because I think you're closer to right than anyone else in this space. But the gap between your encryption and your payment pipeline is the thing that keeps burning people, and it's the thing you have the most control over fixing.
Bill
We do investigate each case, but Proton isn't a detective agency, the ultimate responsibility for the investigation needs to be with Swiss justice, and so this question actually needs to be directed to the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. Are they perfect? Probably not, but we believe they are better than either the Biden or Trump DOJ, and that's why we are based in Switzerland.
On the payment point, I don't believe the banner is warranted because there is nobody who seriously believes credit card payments are anon. Your credit card literally has your name on it. This is common knowledge. The user in this case knew that too, but paid with credit card anyways, because they did not believe they were doing anything wrong (and they were correct, hence no charges).
French police requested, via Europol and Swiss authorities, that Proton log the IP address of a climate activist affiliated with Youth for Climate and a group opposing gentrification near Place Sainte-Marthe in Paris. Proton complied, providing the IP address and browser fingerprint. The activist was arrested. Proton's homepage, which had previously stated "we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account," was edited afterward. Proton's CEO stated the company was "deeply concerned" and that "legal tools for serious crimes are being used in this way." Proton's 2020 transparency report showed compliance with over 3,000 orders that year.
Proton provided a recovery email address to Spanish authorities, leading to the identification of a member of Democratic Tsunami, a Catalan independence organization. No email content was decrypted.
The FBI filed an MLAT request through Swiss authorities for payment data associated with defendtheatlantaforest@proton.me, an account linked to the Defend the Atlanta Forest group and Stop Cop City movement. Proton provided a credit card payment identifier, which investigators used to identify the account holder. The person does not appear to have been charged. All RICO charges against 61 Stop Cop City defendants were dismissed in December 2025. The FBI search warrant affidavit was authored by a Domestic Terrorism squad special agent. The Georgia Attorney General has appealed the dismissal.
In all three cases, the mechanism is the same: a foreign government routes a request through Swiss legal channels via MLAT or Europol, Swiss authorities approve it, and Proton complies. In all three cases, the target was an activist or protester. In all three cases, encrypted email content was protected, but metadata or payment data was not. The gap is not in the encryption. It is in everything around the encryption.