Karnataka High Court directs Union Government to block Switzerland-based Proton Mail in India

The Karnataka High Court has directed the Union Government to initiate legal proceedings under provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 to block Proton Mail in India.

On April 29, Justice M. Nagaprasanna issued the directions while allowing a petition filed by M. Moser Design Associates India Private Limited, Bengaluru.

The court also directed the Union Government to block forthwith the offending Uniform Resource Locator (URLs), which are indicated in the petition, till the government initiates and concludes the proceedings to block Proton Mail under Section 69A of the IT Act 2000 read with Rule 10 of the IT Procedure and Safeguards of Blocking of Access to Information by Public Access Rules, 2009.

The copy of the complete judgement is yet to be released.

The petitioner-company had moved the High Court seeking direction to the government to take legal action against Proton AG, a Switzerland-based company that provides Proton Mail services, based on international agreements by pointing out that Proton’s servers are located outside India, and hence it is claiming that it is not bound by Indian laws.

The petitioner claimed that Proton’s email service allows users to select India as their server location, which gives a false impression that the company is ‘operating’ from within the Indian territory.

The petitioner had filed a complaint with the police in November 2024 alleging that some unknown persons are misusing Proton Mail and were targeting female employees of the petitioner-company by sending obscene, abusive, and derogatory emails containing AI-generated deep-fake images and explicit content.

The petitioner had contended that not much progress has been made in the complaint lodged with the police. Police authorities have not utilised the legal assistance agreements and arrangements between India and Switzerland to initiate action against Proton AG based on the First Information Report registered on the petitioner’s complaint.