Importance of Email End to End Encryption

Keep your email private and secure

Email is still an important way to communicate, especially for long form messages and professional communications.

The issue is your email provider most likely has the ability to read your email messages, use those messages for AI training, and has the ability to hand over your emails to any overreaching government at a moment’s notice.

I no longer send any emails with personal sensitive information using corporate email or popular email providers like Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud. Corporations have to keep all email communications for years for compliance reasons, so be careful what personal communications you send using your work email.

Before you hit send on an email you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Where is that email going?

• How long are they going to store it? Should it expire?

• Who else can read that email? Corporate IT? Google?

• Is what I sent for the reader’s eyes only? How can I make sure?

For most emails you send those questions do not matter, but what happens when they do? Good news, there are privacy focused email providers coming to the forefront to help keep your email private and secure from Big Tech, Big Biz, and Big Gov.

The way privacy email providers keep your email private and secure is a technology called end of end encryption. To boil it down, it means only you and the person you send the email to can read it, period. Imagine privacy by default!

But…..there is a catch. Make sure you know how to use it properly.

The following cautions are steps you must take to ensure that your email remains private. Just by using the service does not make your emails private and secure.

Tip #1: Use the same privacy email provider for communications
Only emails you send and receive with people that are on the same service are encrypted by default. For example, if you use Proton Mail, only emails you send to other Proton email addresses are encrypted. If you send an email from Proton to a Gmail user, that email is not protected by Proton. But there are ways to do that, continue reading.

Tip #2: Encrypted for External
Privacy email providers allow selecting an option so email sent externally can be protected. It does this by requesting you to setup a password before you send the email. The external email user (like an iCloud user) will receive a link in their email (not the actual email) and a prompt for a password when the external user tries to read it. The link is hosted on your private email provider’s website thus stays secure. Your email actually never leaves the server, thus keeping it secure and confidential.

Tip #3: External Emails
You can still send regular emails to external emails, but they will not be private or secure, just like regular emails that are not sensitive.

Tip #4: Expiry
When you send encrypted emails you can set an expiry date so they disappear after the set date. Very useful for information you don’t want floating around in cyberspace forever.

In summary, you can use your privacy email like regular email, but when you communicate with people using the same service it becomes private. If you need to email people not using your service you have the option to send them a link that requires a password to read it.

Why End-to-End Email Encryption Matters

Privacy Protection

Guarding Against Unauthorized Access: End-to-end encryption ensures that only the intended recipient can read the content of your email. Even if intercepted, the encrypted message remains unreadable. Only the person meant to read the email can.

Protecting Sensitive Information: In an age of cybersecurity threats, safeguarding sensitive information like financial data, personal data, or confidential business communications is important. End-to-end encryption adds an extra layer of defense against data breaches and unauthorized access. This ensures only people you want to read the message get to read it.

Integrity Assurance

Preventing Tampering: Encryption not only secures the content of an email but also verifies its integrity. This eliminates tampering or unauthorized modifications to the email, ensuring that the recipient can trust the authenticity of the message. Encryption makes sure the message is not changed.

Building Trust in Communication: End-to-end encryption helps build confidence among users by assuring them that their communication is private and unaltered.

My 3 Favorites Email Encryption Providers

ProtonMail

This is the one we use at the Privacy Society, and I have personally been using it since January 2021. Signup now!

Tutanota (now called Tuta)

These folks are becoming popular and have great free and low cost plans for individuals. Tuta wrote a great article about how Outlook overshares.

Skiff

This company not only provides secure email but has private online documents for those looking to replace Google Docs. If you really want to geek out on email privacy, Skiff wrote a great article called, “One-stop guide to anonymous email services in 2023“.

All of the above companies have free and paid tiers. They have apps for Web, iOS, and Android. We have them in our Privacy Society App Store as well.

The providers also have suites that include VPN, encrypted cloud storage, and private calendars. If you are serious about privacy, you really need to dump the popular and corporate email providers and embrace an email provider that is serious about your personal privacy and security. Popular providers claim they are secure (which they are) and adhere to privacy (which they do not). If they are not end-to-end encrypted they can read your email at anytime for any reason. With end to end encryption it is impossible for these providers to violate your privacy.

In Closing

If you are having a hard time starting your privacy journey, private email is a good first step.

End-to-end email encryption is no longer a luxury but a necessity if privacy of your interconnected digital world is important to you. Whether you choose ProtonMail, Tutanota, or Skiff, each provider brings its own strengths and considerations.

Secure your email messages when you communicate with those that matter most and embrace the power of end-to-end email encryption.

Who do you want reading your email?

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