[German]Swiss provider Proton, known for its encrypted mail service, announced and released its "Docs in Proton" service this week. Similar to Google Docs, users can open an online storage and edit documents in Docs.
In its announcement, Proton addresses that billions of people use online document editors like Google Docs or Microsoft 365 to write reports, collaborate on projects and manage meeting notes. But Proton also mentions the growing concern about big tech platforms having access to too much content, tracking users across the web and collecting data to train privacy-violating AI models.
Encrypted document editor
That's why Proton has announced a new end-to-end encrypted collaborative document editor that puts user privacy first. Documents in Proton Drive are based on the same privacy and security principles as all Proton services, starting with end-to-end encryption.
Proton users can collaborate in real time with Docs, leave comments, add photos and save files securely. Proton promises that everything remains private – even keystrokes and cursor movements are encrypted, according to the announcement.
Proton Drive account is free
Doc has been available since this week; all you need to do is create a free Proton Drive account. Users accessing the service at drive.proton.me can select New in the top left of the window to create a new document. Docs in Proton Drive was developed as a joint project with the Standard Notes team because this team shares Proton's core values in terms of data protection and security.
Similar to other Proton services, Docs puts users back in control of their data. Thanks to the open-source end-to-end encryption, users are the only ones who have the key to read and share the documents. Not even Proton can access the content or metadata (e.g. file names) of your documents. Instead of storing data in the US where it can be monitored by the government, Proton is protected by the strict Swiss data protection laws.
At the moment, the Proton Docs functionality still seems to be somewhat limited – functions are to be added later. But it is an interesting approach in my eyes.
