Silent Circle has relocated to Switzerland, or a place the company prefers to call the land of “Privacy and Neutrality.”
Silent Circle is a company that provides privacy and security-enhanced communications services and is also the company behind the Blackphone.
Before relocating to Switzerland, the company had its headquarters in Nevis, a small Caribbean island between Puerto Rico and Antigua.
In announcing the move on the company’s official blog, Mike Janke, co-founder of Silent Circle and Board Member of Blackphone, said that:
It was very important for us to remain a “Global Neutral Privacy Provider”, as well as a political and religious agnostic company. Switzerland has the world’s most robust privacy laws, fantastic business and financial resources and an incredible business-friendly atmosphere. In addition to being the world’s center for Human Rights, Global freedom of speech and an innovative technology hub, Switzerland is our perfect home. This move was a logical an easy decision for us. With over 75% of our customer base outside of North America and our Joint Venture company Blackphone also headquartered in our joint new office space in Switzerland – it was a natural move.
Considering the type of data-sharing agreements that the US has managed to impose on most countries, including Switzerland, I doubt this move really makes any difference in terms of the privacy of the communications services provided by the company. After all, all it takes is a simple request to clone a disk and ship it to Washington.
