Digital sovereignty: in Switzerland, the army forced to use Threema messaging

The Swiss application Threema, paying and available on iOS and Android, has established itself in a new official body of the country: the army. Military personnel in operation are no longer authorized to use WhatsApp, Telegram or Messenger.

“Digital Sovereignty”. Since 2017, the French government has only had this formula in its mouth. During the Covid-19 crisis, Cédric O, the Secretary of State for Digital, even used this argument to justify the use of a centralized protocol for TousAntiCovid. Quite the opposite of other European countries, most of which want to offer application interoperability.

However, you have to travel to Switzerland to discover more concrete examples of digital sovereignty. Indeed, the Swiss army sent, at the end of December, an email to all commanders and chiefs of staff asking them, as well as the soldiers under their command, to no longer use WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. They will now have to use Threema, a secure messaging application developed and based in Switzerland. A valid recommendation for all communications made on private phones during operations.

The Threema app is already used in public administrations across the country. It is considered more secure in terms of data protection, in particular because messaging services like WhatsApp are subject to the Cloud Act, an American law allowing American judges to order access to data held by US operators, regardless of where the data is located. Threema, since developed and hosted in Switzerland, is not subject to any law other than Swiss law.

The Swiss army has clarified that the cost of downloading the application, which is just under €4, will be covered for everyone. Threema, available for iOS and Android, is based on an open source protocol. End-to-end encrypted, it does not collect any data on its users.