Courts cannot remain mute spectators, Karnataka HC says in order to ban Proton Mail over digital sexual abuse

Karnataka High Court orders Union government to block Proton Mail in India due to harassment concerns.

The Karnataka High Court, which ordered the Union government to block Proton Mail in India last month, released the full written version of its judgement on Thursday (May 29, 2025), in which it observed that courts could not remain “mute spectators” when such a platform became a “menace”. Its order was in response to a complaint that Proton had refused to help identify users sexually harassing a woman via the Swiss end-to-end encrypted email platform.

Despite the April 29 order, Proton Mail is still easily accessible in most of India. Karan Saini, a security researcher who has developed a tool to detect website blocking by various internet service providers, told The Hindu that as of Thursday (May 29, 2025), most ISPs did not seem to be blocking Proton Mail.

The text of the full judgement shows that K. Arvind Kamath, the Additional Solicitor General of India who represented the Union government in the case, did not push back on the court’s right to block Proton Mail. However, he said that such orders “require procedure to be followed and the balance of bilateral relations between the two countries.” Swiss authorities had reportedly engaged with the Union government on Proton’s behalf after a complaint last year.

The High Court’s order directed the Union government to “initiate proceedings in terms of Section 69A of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 r/w Rule 10 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 to block Proton Mail... Till such proceedings are taken up by the Government of India, the offending Uniform Resource Locator - URLs that are indicated in the petition shall be blocked forthwith.”

The order came in response to a petition filed by M Moser Design Associates, a Bengaluru-based firm which said that it had received multiple emails from an anonymous Proton Mail account targeting a senior executive at the firm. The judgement described the first email from the anonymous account as containing “obscene, abusive, vulgar, sexually coloured, derogatory and defamatory remarks in respect of one of the female senior personnel” of the company. 

While the email ID was taken down after M Moser Design complained to Proton, another account sent a similarly obscene email within the same week. Even following formal complaints to the police, Proton Mail did not provide any details that could lead to the identification of the individual or individuals behind the account. An email by the platform reproduced in the order said that Proton would only be able to act on a formal law enforcement request from India.

“Courts cannot remain mute spectators when faced with such menace which undermines privacy and integrity of women in particular,” the order said.