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Law Enforcement Requests

When and how Senden cooperates with law enforcement.

When We Hand Over Data

Senden hands over user data to law enforcement when we receive a valid legal request. Law enforcement cannot contact us directly and expect cooperation. They must go through the Swiss authority responsible for telecommunications surveillance orders, which is a standard protocol.

In Switzerland, that authority is the Dienst Überwachung Post- und Fernmeldeverkehr (Dienst ÜPF) , the Post and Telecommunications Surveillance Service, part of the Federal Department of Justice and Police (EJPD). All surveillance and data requests have to be routed through Dienst ÜPF. Foreign law enforcement agencies additionally have to submit their requests through mutual legal assistance (MLAT) via the Swiss Federal Office of Justice (Bundesamt für Justiz) .

We Fully Comply

When a request comes in through the proper legal channels and it is valid under Swiss law, Senden complies. We do not fight legitimate law enforcement requests, and we do not position ourselves as a shield against legal process.

Our goal is to provide a secure and private chatting platform for everyone . Not a haven for criminals. Privacy for the people who use Senden legitimately is not the same thing as impunity for those who abuse it.

What We Can Provide

There are technical limits on what we can hand over, even when compelled to:

  • End-to-end encrypted messages cannot be decrypted by us. Senden never sees the plaintext or the encryption keys. What the server stores is opaque ciphertext, and that is what would be handed over.
  • Metadata that we do store (account info, timestamps, who communicates with whom, IP addresses retained for anti abuse) can be provided when legally required.
  • Data we do not collect cannot be handed over. We minimize what we retain precisely so there is less to ever produce.