Tuta and CryptPad share a common vision: end-to-end encrypted, open-source tools built in Europe to respect user privacy rather than turning personal data into a business model.

As part of a new collaboration, we spoke to Hanna Bozakov, CEO of Tuta, an encrypted email service. We explored the values Tuta and CryptPad share, the role of encryption and open source in protecting privacy online, and what's next for Tuta. Read on to learn more about the people behind Tuta and discover a special offer for the CryptPad community.

For anyone looking to bring the same commitment to privacy and end-to-end encryption to their inbox, Tuta offers a compelling alternative to mainstream email providers.

Get 25% off Tuta Mail and Tuta Calendar! Use this link https://tuta.com/?t-src=cryptpad  when signing up to automatically receive 25% off a paid yearly plan. On the CryptPad side, use the code PRIVACY25 to get a 25% discount on any first purchase. Both promotions run for one month until 23rd July.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and your role at Tuta?

I’m Hanna. I started working at Tuta in 2014 when we launched our encrypted mail service Tutanota – and I’ve never looked back. At Tuta, we see ourselves as freedom fighters: When we launched, the Snowden leaks were still fresh, and slowly everyone became aware of how problematic general mass surveillance is, how it undermines freedom and democracy, and how only encryption can protect oneself against any kind of snooping. Be it from the government, from malicious attackers, or from tech services that abuse users’ data.

Today, these topics are still there – maybe with a different framing, but the digital sphere still makes surveillance very easy, and cheap. We at Tuta want to build a different internet, one where everyone is respected and where people’s and businesses’ data is not being abused.

My role at Tuta is to spread this message far and wide – first as Marketing and Communications Manager, and today as part of the management team. Tuta has evolved greatly since its first launch, and so has our team. We’re now ready to take on Big Tech – and it’s about time to!

If someone asked you, ‘What is Tuta, and why should I care?’, how would you answer?

Tuta is not just a product, but a statement against Big Tech. We at Tuta follow one essential rule in everything we do: protect users’ data as well as possible and make sure their privacy is being respected, always. We make sure to achieve this not only by end-to-end encrypting as much data as possible, but also by making sure we do not use third-party products that undermine this high level of security. For instance, we do not use Google Push on Android (contrary to other secure email services) because doing so would leak data to Google.

The product, Tuta, now offers much more than quantum-safe encrypted email. Today, it is comprised of Tuta Mail, Tuta Calendar, and Tuta Drive. All of Tuta’s tools are quantum-safe, end-to-end encrypted, open source, and built and hosted in Germany, using 100% renewable electricity.

At Tuta, we believe that everyone deserves privacy and the right to communicate freely, which is why we provide end-to-end encrypted email and calendars for free, globally.

There’s a popular saying, “I have nothing to hide” but if you replied to this with “Okay, let me go through your phone” naturally people would say, “No”. The act of having someone go through your phone would feel like an invasion of your privacy.

Unfortunately, people don’t realize that when they use products owned by tech giants like Google, Microsoft, or Meta - there is an invasion of privacy taking place behind the scenes, constantly.

This highlights why people must care about their privacy and adopt products that are privacy-focused and put the user first – like CryptPad and Tuta Mail.

What do your users love most about Tuta? What pain points does it solve?

Tools that are end-to-end encrypted are often misunderstood to be too technical to use or too complex to set up. This is where we stands out, and this is why users love Tuta. We offer end-to-end encryption made easy. There is no complex setup. There is no technical knowledge needed. Yet, all data is kept secure, and the user feels respected.

We are a community-driven project, and we listen closely to community feedback. Users can get involved by sharing their feedback on social media, by completing our yearly user survey, or even by localizing Tuta to their language. It is amazing to see how our users love to get involved, and it pushes our development teams to go the extra mile – for instance when we built our own notification service on Android – even when it is more work for us than taking a shortcut. Our entire team is passionate about privacy, and we love to share this passion with our users.

In terms of products, Tuta’s apps are easy to use and ensure data security and privacy. This is what the Tuta community loves most about our tools – especially Tuta Mail. All you have to do is sign up for an account (which takes less than one minute) and voilà, you have an end-to-end encrypted mailbox. The next step, sending an end-to-end encrypted email, is also easy. If you’re emailing another Tuta Mail user, you just need to click send and the encryption is automatic, and if you want to email an external user (for example, a Gmail user), you can use a shared password for encrypting the email.

Who uses Tuta today? Are there specific use cases or communities where it really shines?

We have over 10 million users around the world, and Tuta is currently being adopted by more business customers. Today, Tuta is not only used by “techies”, so to say, but also the everyday internet user, and I think there are many reasons for this. For example, since the beginning of last year we have been seeing a huge growth in sign-ups due to political activity in the US, and the growing trend of people choosing European, digitally sovereign products. Surprisingly, this trend is also happening in the US where many people also feel that it’s time to stop supporting Big Tech, and choose more ethical solutions.

Tuta Mail is especially important for journalists, activists, and non-profit organizations such as those that help protect threatened groups in need of protection. But our general user base is much broader than this. Of course, in the beginning, the early adopters often were IT-savvy because these people know about the threats online and how easy it is to scan a normal email. But today, we have users from all parts of society because the understanding that protecting one’s privacy is important has become common knowledge. This proves what we have been saying from the start: Once people can get privacy and security easily, they will start using these products – and turning their backs on Big Tech. It’s great to see this happen on a larger scale!

Tuta is known for going all-in on end-to-end encryption. What makes this approach stand out and why is it so important today?

Regular email providers like Gmail and Outlook claim that they’re private and secure, but in reality, this is “privacy washing". These providers have access to the users’ data because they do not provide end-to-end encryption. At Tuta, we are different: we do not abuse our users’ data. Instead we focus on protecting it with zero-access encryption. While we have zero access, our users have full control over their data, because we at Tuta encrypt as much data as possible end-to-end.

We released Tuta Mail twelve years ago, and we have not stopped developing and improving Tuta’s security since. Thanks to our dedicated team of cryptography experts, we were able to become the first email provider to implement quantum-safe algorithms, ensuring we protect all our users from the threat of “Harvest now, decrypt later”.

For us, offering the most advanced and secure end-to-end encryption matters because user privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Our approach stands out because we take care of encryption and security first, and then add products to the encrypted framework. This way, we can make sure that all possible data is protected, and nothing is left at risk.

Were there moments when taking a privacy-first approach felt risky or unpopular? How did you navigate that?

Yes, when Tuta was first released in 2014, using end-to-end encrypted tools was only for techies, and it was a niche product. During this time, it was more of a challenge to make people aware of the importance of using secure communication channels, let alone convince them to switch email providers.

But over the years, with each scandal that unfolded (think Edward Snowden or the Cambridge Analytica Scandal), people have started to wake up and realize the threat from Big Tech, (foreign) governments, and anyone else trying to get hold of your data.

Luckily, we never gave up. We continued to deliver private and secure email, while developing our other encrypted tools. At the same time, we made sure to keep our human approach - we are not a large corporate company - and I believe that our users appreciate this.

Today, we are a growing and successful company with more people choosing Tuta than ever before.

What new features or improvements are you excited about?

There are many, but I will just mention the latest one! We have just released our quantum-secure cloud, Tuta Drive, in closed beta. This has been a highly anticipated product for Tuta users and an exciting development for us at Tuta.

For now, we have a group of people testing the drive and giving us feedback while we continue to develop, fix, and improve it. Tuta Drive is currently available in our desktop clients for Linux, MacOS, and Windows, as well as through ouir web client. Soon we will also have standalone Tuta Drive apps available for Android and iOS.

In the upcoming months, we will release Tuta Drive in public beta and we cannot wait for more Tuta users to start using it.

Is there a privacy-first or open-source tool you trust enough to recommend to our readers?

CryptPad. We love what you are doing at CryptPad and XWiki, and we use CryptPad ourselves as well. We also like Nextcloud and currently work on an integration with Nextcloud so that you can combine your self-hosted Nextcloud suite with Tuta Mail as your encrypted email provider. We believe that within the privacy-focused ecosystem, it’s important to work together, use each others’ products and recommend them. We are all fighting the good fight, and it’s great to see how we can join forces and achieve so much together. We’re excited to build a better web, and the more open-source projects joining in this fight, the better. That’s also why we donate Tuta Mail to open source projects. So if you are an open source developer reading this, do get in touch!

Tuta and CryptPad share a strong focus on privacy and open-source. From your perspective, what stands out most?

Both. Privacy and open source go hand in hand. You can’t offer a securely encrypted product if it’s not open source. If you did, no one could verify that you actually do what you promise: protect users’ data. Any responsible privacy-first tool publishes it’s code as open source, just like Tuta and CryptPad do. It’s essential, and everyone with a tiny bit of tech knowledge understands this.

And finally, looking at CryptPad from the outside, what do you think it gets right about privacy and collaboration?

CryptPad is a great tool that makes secure collaboration possible, and it’s free. From the outside, the only thing that I would like to see is that more and more people start adopting it, and for CryptPad to become more widely known beyond the tech-savvy bubble. Speaking as someone who has been part of Tuta Mail's journey for more than 12 years now, I know how hard this is, but I also know that it’s possible, and I’m very optimistic for the future!