Online privacy in our hotel consulting business is critical, both in our private lives and business. Driven by a lack of trust in data privacy using Google products, in 2019 we switched to ProtonMail.
We regularly exchange confidential and sensitive information with our clients, therefore creating and maintaining a secure environment is essential. Google invades privacy to intolerable extents so we switched from Google Suite to the most secure email and cloud storage solution available for commercial use.
Goodbye G suite and Gmail for business
Our company emerged from freelance tech-hipster beginnings, and back in those times, Gsuite from Google seemed like a good option. Since then we learned how Google invades online privacy by scanning emails, sharing information with NSA, and allowing third parties such as mobile app developers to monitor Gmail content – naturally, finding a new email provider has become urgent. Same with storing sensitive information such as project plans investment-related confidential information, we have moved away from Google Drive to Tresorit.
Welcome ProtonMail
ProtonMail is the e-mail solution used in the CERN of Switzerland. Developed especially for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, ProtonMail works with a zero-access policy and encrypts messages so securely that not even ProtonMail developers can see it.
Messages are stored on ProtonMail servers in an encrypted format. They are also transmitted in encrypted format between servers and user devices. Messages between ProtonMail users are also transmitted in encrypted form within our secure server network. Because data is encrypted at all steps, the risk of message interception is largely eliminated.
With our new email solution, our clients can be sure that their sensitive information is safe and secure with us, stored highly encrypted at CERN servers, somewhere in the Swiss Alps.
Welcome Tresorit
Besides switching to a more secure email, we also switched from Google Drive to Tresorit to keep sensitive files and documents safe. Similar to ProtonMail, Tresorit is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage solution built with maximum security in mind. The company is trusted and used by companies like Pfizer, Emirates, or Allianz. The company and its servers are also based in Switzerland, the country with one of the highest security regulations in the world.
Using end-to-end encryption, Tresorit encrypts every file and relevant file metadata on your devices with unique randomly generated encryption keys. These keys are never sent to our servers in unencrypted format. Accessing files is only possible with a user’s unique decryption key.
Further security measures to exclude Google products in order to prevent data leak
As per our new company policies:
- We do not use public WIFI hotspots to create, upload or download sensitive information
- We do not use Google Chrome to work on sensitive information
- We do not use Android phones for sensitive communication
- We do not use Google Docs or Google Sheets to prepare or handle sensitive documents