At the beginning of the new year, the Swiss Army issued a WhatsApp ban for all of its employees. For business communication (also via the soldiers’ private cell phones), only the exchange of messages on an encrypted channel, namely the messenger service Threema, is permitted. Threema is a Swiss application and is supposed to guarantee the security of the data, which other messenger services like WhatsApp and Co. cannot guarantee sufficiently or not to this extent. In addition, unlike WhatsApp, Threema has no personal information such as phone numbers or names. And the risk of having to serve a foreign government by using a “foreign” messenger is eliminated with a Swiss solution, as a Swiss journalist notes in a comment on the matter in the “Tagesanzeiger”.
She also points out that Threema’s security has “its limits”: as long as the militia members use their civilian cell phones (which they will continue to do for practical reasons), even an encrypted messenger service does not offer absolute protection against the dreaded possible espionage attacks. This can be done by spy software or govware that has lodged itself unnoticed on the cell phone, from where it transmits information to unauthorized persons.
