The Swiss navy has banned the use of WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and different encrypted overseas messaging offerings via army personnel for respectable communications, the Associated Press reports.
Instead, the Swiss navy has suggested personnel to use the Swiss-made Threema app due to issues about regulation in Washington that governs how US authorities can get entry to records held via tech companies.
The announcement used to be made in a letter despatched to the army's pinnacle body of workers in December. He noted privateness worries primarily based on US authorities' capability to get admission to data.
In a letter to senior commanders, military chiefs known as for the use of the Swiss on the spot messaging provider Threema. A advertising for the carrier used to be posted on December 29 on the Swiss Army's Facebook page.
Officials cited the developing want for impenetrable communications as troopers deployed to help the response to the coronavirus pandemic in the alpine country.
The unique message to the navy chiefs reportedly stated that no different messaging carrier would be authorized. But the spokeswoman later appeared to play down the pressure of the decree, describing it to the AP as a recommendation.
The spokeswoman stated the navy can't and does no longer prefer to require troopers to use a unique app on their personal devices.
The most important problem seems to be the potential of authorities in Washington to get right of entry to records saved by using groups underneath US jurisdiction, as described in the US CLOUD Act.
WhatsApp banned due to privateness concerns
- CLOUD requires provider vendors beneath US jurisdiction to comply with search orders, regardless of the place servers are located.
- As a Swiss employer with no servers hosted in the US, Threema will now not be obligated to reply to such search warrants.
- Given the sturdy privateness protections imposed via European GDPR regulations, privateness advocates and multinationals alike had hoped that archives saved in the EU would be backyard the jurisdiction of the US courtroom system.
However, in January 2020, a federal choose in New York dominated that compliance with overseas privateness legal guidelines does now not get rid of the responsibility to post archives beneath discovery. This is in a case associated to the SEC's pursuit of the messaging app Telegram for no longer registering sufficiently to promote cryptocurrency.