A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the FBI.
https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/
They are required to store client identification data for 6 months by #Swiss law
Art. 22 SPTA
@manankanchu @jtb @404mediaco Which is very common practice worldwide - exact timelines vary, but in general it gets stored for quite some time. If you want your payments to be as invisible as possible, you find methods that cannot be directly traced to you. Mailing money, using a prepaid gift card, or cryptocoin via multiple layers of abstraction to make it hard to trace who each transaction involves.
This is a reminder of what data can and cannot be accessed. Proton might not be able to hand over the direct contents of your emails and whatnot, but data like this can be handed over if required.
Unluckily it's not that simple in Switzerland
ISPs are required to identify their customers, whichever way they do that - at least in cases, where Swiss network identifiers (like Swiss IP addresses for a VPN service) are being used.
If the ISP doesn't request ID card or other verification of physical address, etc. they can e.g. use payment details for certain services. In such case they are not allowed to accept anonymous payment like Bitcoin or other means ....
404 Media
jtb
Matthias R. Koch
Senil