iPhone users can say goodbye to email tracking with new Proton Mail update

More than 160 billion emails sent every day contain invisible trackers that monitor recipients’ online activities.

This is the latest disturbing data collected by one of the best VPN providers, Proton VPN. This means that about five out of every ten emails you receive may be spying on you.

Thankfully, anyone using an iPhone or iPad can now escape email tracking by default following the latest update to the secure email service Proton Mail iOS apps.

Not only can Proton Mail prevent these intrusive images from loading on a device, but it also hides users’ IP location and data around email hours of operation.

Email tracking is a form of online surveillance typically used by marketers. It relies heavily on these invisible images to build a profile on recipients without their consent. What’s worse, these web trackers can actually collect sensitive data even when using an encrypted email service.

With mobile security becoming more and more relevant these days, the Swiss-based provider decided to expand tracking protection from its desktop app to iOS. A new version of the Android app with this feature is also currently in the pipeline.

A more secure email experience without trackers

Regarding email tracking, Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said, “This kind of surveillance is unacceptable, especially on the scale at which it is currently occurring, and users are largely unaware that it is happening.”

“It’s essentially like hovering an eye over your shoulder, making a note of every time you open and read an email, logging the device you’re using, your ISP, and even your location.”

Proton’s tracking protection remotely loads the image onto one of its servers to protect users’ privacy. Images are then cached on these servers so that you can privately reopen the email since you don’t have to reload the tracking image.

Since the provider automatically opens the email once it’s received over its secure network, it prevents marketers from tracking down other sensitive data, such as the user’s real IP address, email timestamps, operating system, device type, or browser used .

Proton assures that there is no way it can read user emails as they are protected by strict end-to-end and zero-access encryption.

“At Proton, our mission has always been to build a better internet where privacy is the standard,” says Yen.

“That’s why we’re not only rolling out end-to-end encryption for emails, we’re also rolling out our unique email tracker protection.”

Proton’s tracking protection is also easy to use.

For starters, it automatically runs in the background, so there’s no need to fiddle with settings. All you need to do is make sure your Proton Mail app is up to date.

Whenever you open an email with one of these web trackers, you will receive a notification. You can then just tap the shield icon that appears in the top right of the infected email to see what has been blocked.

First launched in its web apps in January last year, it is now the first time users can enjoy the feature on iPhone and iPad.

Some improvements have also just been made. For example, you can now customize how you want to view these remote images for each app.

Proton saw a 46% increase in blocked trackers since the enhanced version of its tracking protection was first introduced.

Soon those using Android devices will also be able to enjoy a more secure email experience without trackers.