ProtonMail has been tracking your IP address all along

ProtonMail has been busted holding onto the IP addresses of a French climate activity, as well as their browser fingerprint -- after Swiss authorities requested the data.

ProtonMail is meant to have end-to-end encryption by default, but it didn't -- the company states "By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account". But we now know that's not true, and the company has since updated its privacy policy.

After the company sent over the metadata of the French activity, ProtonMail then removed the portion of its policy that said the company didn't log IP addresses. In its place, is "ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first".

But you see, the original privacy policy that ProtonMail had on its website before it ninja-edited it said that the service doesn't keep IP addresses "by default". But ProtonMail when pushed by the Swiss court's injunction, started logging IP addresses and browser fingerprint information for the French activists ProtonMail account -- cough, probably everybody and the entire time.

ProtonMail's new privacy policy says: "If you are breaking Swiss law, ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address as part of a Swiss criminal investigation".

You can read more about this mess here.