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@ IC - InfoCollagen
2025-05-04 08:56:03
NymVPN
Blog
People’s online privacy and digital integrity under threat in Switzerland and beyond
Nym’s call to action to defend our digital rights
A new digital surveillance ordinance in Switzerland is being proposed that would require telecommunication companies in the country, including encrypted email providers like Proton and VPNs like NymVPN, to collect identification from people using their services. Egregiously, it also demands a backdoor on encrypted content.
As a privacy provider, NymVPN believes this would be a violation of people’s rights to online privacy and digital integrity without democratic referendum. As Alexis Roussel, Nym’s Chief Operating Officer, has put it in a public statement:
“This ordinance profoundly alters the spirit of the law. But the Federal Council has chosen the path not subject the ordinance to a referendum in order to push through its demands. At a time when the Swiss are celebrating the success of leading privacy-preserving companies such as Proton and Threema, when the army itself has chosen to use Threema, and when other promising players, such as Nym, are emerging in the field of privacy-friendly technologies and the protection of people's digital integrity, this ordinance by the Federal Council is destroying an entire sector.”
Read the full statement below, and what you can do to help prevent it.
What can you do to help?
Help us get the word out: Share this news as widely as possible on your social networks
Live in Switzerland?
Respond to the consultation by 6 May 2025
https://www.admin.ch/gov/fr/accueil/documentation/communiques/communiques-conseil-federal.msg-id-103968.html
https://strapi-www-nym-com-production.sos-ch-dk-2.exo.io/Screenshot_2025_04_03_at_17_34_00_68e306cd50.png
Write to your federal elected representatives to express your concern about how this ordinance will affect your digital rights and integrity.
Live in the EU? Continue to be on guard against legislative attempts to undermine end-to-end encryption, as Nym has been reporting, and privacy-preserving technologies like NymVPN, Signal, Proton, and many others.
Resources
The Federal Council's press release:
https://www.admin.ch/gov/fr/accueil/documentation/communiques/communiques-conseil-federal.msg-id-103968.html
The explanatory report:
https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/91537.pdf
The text of the ordinance
https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/91537.pdf
Full Nym statement
Original French below
A new ordinance issued by the Swiss Federal Council not only puts companies such as Proton, Threema, and Nym at direct risk, but also the security of individuals.
The new version of the Ordinance on the Surveillance of Correspondence by Post and Telecommunications (OSCPT) aims to extend surveillance obligations to those offering services such as e-mail, messaging, social networking, and VPNs.
As of 5,000 users, the ordinance requires operators to identify users by means of a form of identification. The operator must keep this information for 6 months after the end of the relationship (Article 19). For example, an association running a mastodon server would have to identify users if it exceeded 5,000.
The ordinance seeks to impose the decryption of communications when the operator possesses one of the encryption keys (Article 50a).
Generally speaking, the ordinance imposes completely disproportionate conditions for data collection, storage, and accessibility, the cost of which will be borne entirely by the operator. This ordinance directly endangers the people who use these services.
In addition to an extremely technical approach to amending the ordinance, which is designed to prevent citizens from understanding the text, the Federal Council is in fact seeking to circumvent the case law of the Swiss Federal Court, which ruled in favor of Threema's refusal of access to its users’ data.
This ordinance profoundly alters the spirit of the law. In order to push through its demands, the Federal Council has chosen the path of not subjecting the ordinance to a referendum.
At a time when the Swiss are celebrating the success of young privacy-preserving companies such as Proton and Threema, when the Swiss army itself has chosen to use Threema, and when other promising players, such as Nym, are emerging in the field of privacy-friendly technologies and the protection of people’s digital integrity, this ordinance by the Federal Council is destroying an entire sector.
We invite you to respond to the consultation (deadline 6 May 2025), and we also urge you to contact your cantonal and federal elected representatives to ask questions about the legitimacy of such an ordinance today.
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https://nym.com/blog/privacy-under-threat-switzerland