Overview
Launched in November 2013 by Arnaud Huret and Patrick De Schutter as part of ContactOffice Group, which has operated an online collaboration platform since 1999, Mailfence provides a privacy-focused email suite protected by Belgian privacy law. The platform includes encrypted email, calendar, document storage, and contact management.
Mailfence uses true OpenPGP end-to-end encryption processed in the user's browser, meaning private keys never leave the client. Belgian privacy law requires a court order from a local judge before any information can be disclosed, providing a legal privacy layer above and beyond what GDPR mandates in practice. The company donates 15% of revenues from its Ultra plan to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and European Digital Rights.
Mailfence operates without external VC funding, relying on subscription revenue from its paid plans. It competes with Proton Mail and Tutanota in the privacy-first email segment, differentiating itself through Belgian legal jurisdiction and the breadth of its integrated collaboration features.
Key people
In the news
- Law firms hold some of the most sensitive data in any industry: financial records, medical histories, privileged legal strategy. Nearly all of it arrives by email. One in three firms has experienced a security breach. Phishing remains the single most common entry point. And the average breach now costs $4.4 million globally. If your client data is in your inbox, your inbox is the perimeter. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eRedUYFq #Privacy #Cybersecurity #EmailSecurity #LegalTech #Mailfence
- From 18 September, any EU judicial authority can order a service provider in another member state to hand over electronic evidence in 10 days. In emergencies, 8 hours. The EU e-Evidence Regulation bypasses the provider's home authorities entirely. That means a court in one country can compel a provider in another to produce data without going through that country's legal system first. For anyone handling cross-border client data, the question of where your email provider is based, and what jurisdiction governs your data, just
- A traveller used a built-in privacy feature at the US border. Now he faces federal charges. The man entered a duress password on his GrapheneOS device when officers demanded access. It wiped the phone. He was not under arrest. The government is prosecuting him anyway. When using a security feature becomes evidence of wrongdoing, the incentives are backwards. (Source: Mailfence Privacy Digest, August 2026) 📬 Sub to never miss a story: https://lnkd.in/ebFk_2eH #Privacy #Cybersecurity #DataProtection #InfoSec #Mailfence
- 559 million. The largest children's privacy settlement in US history. TikTok collected and kept minors' data without parental consent. The settlement resolves those claims, but the timing is telling: earlier this month the EU found TikTok in breach of the DSA for the same issue, defaulting children's accounts to public. Two continents, two rulings, one pattern. When a platform's business model depends on children's data, fines become a cost of doing business unless the model itself changes. Find out more on our monthly Privacy
- Attorney-client privilege is a legal shield. It does not encrypt anything. A standard email passes through multiple servers before it reaches your client. Unless the content itself is encrypted, it can be read, copied or altered at any point along that route. TLS helps, but it only protects each link in the chain, not the message itself. For privileged correspondence, end-to-end encryption is the only approach that matches the duty. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eRedUYFq #Privacy #Cybersecurity #EmailSecurity #LegalTech #Mailfence
- Fan of the week 🏆 "Rachel was very helpful and answered my query the same day which would never happen with the big tech companies." Thanks for making the switch, Clare, and for the shout-out to our support team. Got thoughts on Mailfence? We'd love to hear them. #Mailfence #FanOfTheWeek #CustomerReview #Trustpilot
- 3.75 million patients. Six days of unauthorised access. Five months before the full scale was confirmed. Intruders spent nearly a week inside CareCloud's AWS environment in March. The breach is now the fifth-largest US health data theft of 2026, but patients only learned the true extent in September. On Tuesday we shared that the average breach costs $4.4 million globally. The real cost is measured in patient trust, and that takes longer to rebuild than any system. Source: Mailfence Privacy Digest: https://lnkd.in/ebFk_2eH
- 825 million. The second-largest GDPR fine ever. The Dutch Data Protection Authority ruled that Uber auto-deactivated driver accounts by algorithm, with no human review and no appeal. That breaches the GDPR's protections against solely automated decisions with significant effects. Automated does not mean compliant. If the decision affects someone's livelihood, a human needs to be in the loop. (Source: Mailfence Privacy Digest, August 2026) 📬 Privacy news, every month: https://lnkd.in/ebFk_2eH #Privacy #Cybersecurity
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