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Secure mailboxes: why they exist, what they cost, what was breached

The question: why did banks, insurers and public offices build "secure mailboxes"; what do these portals ask of the people who must watch them; how safe were the stores behind them; and what grounds the alternative Sioul supports, letters sent by mail, end-to-end encrypted, read in one window? The design it shapes: design.md ("Portals"); the rule in short: research.md, finding 37; the account for everyone, in the user guide: Why Sioul encrypts mail.

Researched on 18 October 2026, from primary sources linked at each fact: standards (IETF RFCs, the W3C), European law, the regulators' and the ombudsman's own texts (the CNIL, the Défenseur des droits, the US Department of Health and Human Services), the organisations' own notices, official security guidance (ANSSI, NIST) and peer-reviewed papers; each was read on that day. An organisation is named only where its own notice or a regulator names it, with the date. The pages of AP-HP, of the government on France Titres, of HHS and of La Banque Postale refuse automated reading: they were read in the Internet Archive's copies, dated below. Lines marked Sioul's reading are this note's inference from the sources above them, not a finding of theirs. "Built" and "not built" say where Sioul stood on 18 October 2026 (version 0.0.6).

How evidence is graded: law (a regulation or a directive), standard (an RFC, a W3C Recommendation or Note, a published specification), regulator (a regulator's, an ombudsman's or a government agency's own text), notice (the organisation's own statement or guide), guidance (a national security agency's recommendations), meta (meta-analysis or systematic review), study (a peer-reviewed study, its kind said), qualitative. "Abstract read" marks a paper read at its abstract.

In short

  • The problem is real. Mail is encrypted between servers only when both agree, can be downgraded to clear text, and sits readable at each server it crosses (RFC 3207, RFC 8461, Durumeric et al. 2015); the CNIL says that the entities with access to the servers on the way "peuvent avoir accès à leur contenu". The GDPR asks for security appropriate to the risk, encryption among its first measures (article 32).
  • The portal answer moved the work onto the person. Organisations say it in their own words: a bank's secure messaging is safer "par rapport à une boîte mail classique"; the tax office's guide says that a mail will tell you of a reply, and "Vous devrez vous connecter à votre espace particulier pour lire la réponse". The Défenseur des droits documents the transfer of work and of responsibility, mail to follow "sur une ou plusieurs messageries", spaces not consulted in time and the risk of losing rights (2022), authentication systems that "changent sans cesse", and nearly one person in four who, without help, gives up rights through lost time, discouragement or anxiety (April 2026). The W3C names remembered passwords and copied codes as barriers for people whose memory or executive function is impaired, and password managers as a remedy; meta-analyses find weaker working memory, planning or attention, on average, with ADHD, depression, PTSD and burnout. No study measures portals in these groups: that link is an inference, and is said as one.
  • The stores behind the portals were breached again and again since 2020, as notices or regulators confirm: AP-HP's "secure file-sharing service" (2021, about 1.4 million people), the Assurance Maladie's professional portal (2022, 510,000 insured people), a provider of Pôle emploi (2023), Viamedis and Almerys (2024, more than 33 million people), France Travail and Cap emploi (2024, everyone registered in the past twenty years; a fine of 5 million euros in 2026 for advisers' authentication that was not robust enough), FICOBA (2026, through one official's usurped login), France Titres (2026, 11.7 million accounts possibly concerned), Vacaf (October 2026); abroad, MOVEit Transfer (2023) and Change Healthcare (about 192.7 million people). The CNIL: breaches affecting more than a million people doubled in 2024, through compromised logins, phishing and providers. No notice says that the messages in a portal were read: the notices speak of the services and stores behind the portals.
  • The alternative stands on official advice and on standards: a password manager (ANSSI R34, the CNIL's deliberation 2022-100 §32, NIST SP 800-63B), a different password for each service (ANSSI R33), a second factor, preferably one you possess (ANSSI); OpenPGP (RFC 9580), S/MIME (RFC 8551), keys that never leave an OpenPGP card (its specification). The GDPR (article 34(3)(a)): data made unintelligible by encryption make a breach harmless enough that the people concerned need not even be told. Some organisations already take or send encrypted mail: CERT-FR publishes its key; in 2019, a German savings bank sent S/MIME and OpenPGP mail read "direkt in Ihrem persönlichen Postfach"; in 2019 too, the justice administration of Lower Saxony exchanged S/MIME and PGP mail. Limits: metadata and the subject, lost keys, usability (Whitten & Tygar 1999), client flaws (EFAIL, 2018), the organisations' own adoption, and the phone, where Sioul's security key is not built yet.

1. Why organisations built "secure mailboxes"

1.1 Mail is protected hop by hop, if at all, and sits readable at each provider

  • RFC 3207, SMTP over TLS (February 2002) (standard), https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3207, section 6: "It should be noted that SMTP is not an end-to-end mechanism. Thus, if an SMTP client/server pair decide to add TLS privacy, they are not securing the transport from the originating mail user agent to the recipient. Further, because delivery of a single piece of mail may go between more than two SMTP servers, adding TLS privacy to one pair of servers does not mean that the entire SMTP chain has been made private." Section 4: "A publicly-referenced SMTP server MUST NOT require use of the STARTTLS extension in order to deliver mail locally": encryption between servers is optional by design.
  • RFC 8461, MTA-STS (September 2018) (standard), https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8461, section 1: STARTTLS is "this opportunistic encryption protocol"; "any attacker who can delete parts of the SMTP session (such as the "250 STARTTLS" response) or who can redirect the entire SMTP session (perhaps by overwriting the resolved MX record of the delivery domain) can perform downgrade or interception attacks." Its security considerations add that deleting that response "would result in the SMTP session occurring over plaintext, despite both parties supporting TLS".
  • Durumeric, Adrian, Mirian, Kasten, Bursztein, Lidzborski, Thomas, Eranti, Bailey & Halderman (2015) (study: a measurement), "Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor MITM... An Empirical Analysis of Email Delivery Security", ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2015, doi:10.1145/2815675.2815695, https://conferences2.sigcomm.org/imc/2015/papers/p27.pdf, from Gmail's logs of January 2014 to April 2015: TLS protected 60 % of Gmail's inbound mail and 80 % of its outbound mail in April 2015; "opportunistic encryption that favors failing open and transmitting messages in cleartext ... enables network attackers to intercept and surveil mail"; "41,405 SMTP servers in 4,714 ASes and 193 countries ... cannot protect mail from passive eavesdroppers due to STARTTLS corruption on the network"; "in seven countries, more than 20% of all messages are actively prevented" from being encrypted. Dated: encryption between servers has spread since; the design, optional and hop by hop, has not changed, unless the receiving domain publishes MTA-STS (RFC 8461) or DANE (RFC 7672, https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7672).
  • At rest: encryption between servers ends at each server, so each provider on the way keeps the message as it came. The user guide says so of Sioul too ("Only the mail you encrypt with OpenPGP is unreadable to them": What Sioul cannot protect), and the large providers document that only client-side encryption keeps them out (Google Workspace's client-side encryption, Microsoft's Double Key Encryption: their sources are on that page). The CNIL says it of every channel (1.3).

1.2 What the GDPR asks of whoever sends personal data

  • Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation, Official Journal L 119, 4 May 2016 (law), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679 (in French, the same address with /FR/):
    • Article 5(1)(f), "integrity and confidentiality": personal data are "processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage".
    • Article 32(1): "appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, including inter alia as appropriate: (a) the pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data".
    • Article 9(1): "data concerning health" are a special category, whose processing is prohibited but for the exceptions of article 9(2).
    • Article 34(3)(a): a breach need not be told to the people concerned when the data were protected by measures "that render the personal data unintelligible to any person who is not authorised to access it, such as encryption".
    • Sioul's reading: the regulation names the encryption of the data, not a portal, as what makes a leak harmless.

1.3 What the CNIL advises for sending data out

  • CNIL, "Sécurité : Sécuriser les échanges avec l'extérieur", 14 March 2024 (regulator; a sheet of its guide to the security of personal data), https://www.cnil.fr/fr/securite-securiser-les-echanges-avec-lexterieur: "Sans mesure complémentaire, les canaux de transmission de données grand public (ex. : messagerie électronique, messagerie instantanée, plateforme de dépôt de fichiers) constituent rarement un moyen de communication sûr pour transmettre des données personnelles."; "En outre, les entités ayant accès aux serveurs par lesquels transite l'information peuvent avoir accès à leur contenu ou à des métadonnées." It advises to "chiffrer les pièces sensibles à transmettre" and to send the secret by another channel ("envoi du fichier chiffré par e-mail et communication du mot de passe par téléphone ou SMS"); for transfers, "un protocole garantissant la confidentialité et l'authentification du serveur destinataire pour les transferts de fichiers (ex. : SFTP ou HTTPS)". Not to do: "Transmettre des fichiers contenant des données personnelles en clair via des messageries et autres plateformes grand public", and "Ne pas prévoir la suppression (de préférence automatique) des fichiers transmis à l'aide d'une plateforme de transfert de fichiers" (see AP-HP, 2.1). Further: "Utiliser des algorithmes à clé publique, lorsque les différents acteurs ont mis en place une infrastructure de gestion de clés publiques". It names neither OpenPGP nor S/MIME.

1.4 A French case: the patients' "messagerie sécurisée" is mail in a closed space

  • Agence du numérique en santé, MSSanté, "Éléments d'information à destination des éditeurs de solution MSSanté pour les professionnels" (Mon espace santé, Messagerie), version 1.0, 3 December 2021 (notice: a specification for software makers), https://mssante.fr/documents/16106/0/ENS-Mon+espace+sante+-+Messagerie+-+V1.0.pdf/03fff166-5c54-4c16-8a3a-1f248fb8343c: a patient's address is made of a number at patient.mssante.fr; the messages are ordinary e-mails (the sender's name is read in the "champ « From: » du courriel"); "Le client de messagerie de Mon espace santé permet la consultation des courriels provenant des professionnels habilités".
  • Sioul's reading: the protocol was mail all along. What the "secure" design adds is a closed space whose one store holds every patient's messages, and a separate place the person must go to read them.

2. Breaches of the stores behind portals, and of their providers, since 2020

Only what the organisation's own notice, or a regulator, states.

2.1 AP-HP (the Paris hospitals), its "service sécurisé de partage de fichiers", summer 2021

  • AP-HP's own notice (notice; the complaint filed on 15 September 2021; the page updated on 10 February 2025), https://www.aphp.fr/actualites/lap-hp-porte-plainte-suite-une-attaque-informatique-sur-son-service-securise-de-partage, read in the Internet Archive's copy of 21 January 2026: files were stolen "à la suite d'une attaque informatique conduite au cours de l'été et confirmée le 12 septembre dernier", from "un service sécurisé de partage de fichiers hébergé et utilisé par l'AP-HP"; "Les fichiers dérobés concernent environ 1,4 million de personnes, ayant réalisé des tests (PCR et sérologies Covid-19) mi-2020": "l'identité, le numéro de sécurité sociale et les coordonnées des personnes testées", the professionals' identity and contact details, the test's type and result. The service had been used "de manière très ponctuelle en septembre 2020" to send laboratory data to the Assurance Maladie and the regional health agencies. "Les premières investigations suggèrent que le vol pourrait être lié à une récente faille de sécurité de l'outil numérique de partage de fichiers". The CNIL was notified.
  • Sioul's reading: a "secure" transfer tool, used once to move data between institutions, kept the files, and lost them a year later.

2.2 Assurance Maladie: health professionals' amelipro accounts, March 2022

  • The Assurance Maladie's press release, "Connexion de personnes non autorisées à des comptes amelipro", 17 March 2022 (notice), https://www.assurance-maladie.ameli.fr/presse/2022-03-17-infopresse-connexions-non-autorisees-comptes-amel: "les attaquants ont pu se connecter à des comptes dont les adresses e-mail avaient été compromises (19 comptes de professionnels de santé ont été identifiés)"; they queried, with a robot, "un service dénommé « Infopatient »"; "510 000 assurés sont concernés par cette fuite de données": their identity, social security number and data on their rights; contact details, bank details and data on illnesses and care "ne sont pas concernées". The IP addresses were banned and the professionals' accounts reset; the CNIL was notified on 16 March 2022.
  • Sioul's reading: a portal for professionals, entered with compromised credentials, gave out the data of half a million people who never used it.

2.3 Pôle emploi: a provider's breach, August 2023

  • Pôle emploi's press release, "Un prestataire de Pôle emploi victime d'un acte de cyber-malveillance", Paris, 23 August 2023 (notice), https://francetravail.org/files/live/sites/peorg/files/documents/Communiqu%C3%A9%20de%20presse/20230823%20-%20POLE%20EMPLOI%20-%20CP%20-%20Un%20prestataire%20de%20P%C3%B4le%20emploi%20victime%20d%E2%80%99un%20acte%20de%20cyber-malveillance-1.pdf: "la violation du système d'information d'un de ses prestataires"; "Les demandeurs d'emploi inscrits en février 2022 et d'anciens usagers de Pôle emploi sont potentiellement concernés"; "Les nom et prénom et le numéro de sécurité sociale sont concernés"; e-mail addresses, phone numbers, passwords and bank details "ne sont en revanche pas concernés"; the CNIL notified that day. The release names neither the provider nor the tool, and gives no count.

2.4 Viamedis and Almerys, third-party payment operators of complementary health insurers, end of January 2024

  • CNIL, "Violation de données de deux opérateurs de tiers payant : la CNIL ouvre une enquête et rappelle aux assurés les précautions à prendre", 7 February 2024 (regulator), https://cnil.fr/fr/violation-de-donnees-de-deux-operateurs-de-tiers-payant-la-cnil-ouvre-une-enquete-et-rappelle-aux: "l'attaque informatique dont ils ont été victimes fin janvier"; "cette fuite de données concerne plus de 33 millions de personnes"; for the insured people and their families, "l'état civil, la date de naissance et le numéro de sécurité sociale, le nom de l'assureur santé ainsi que les garanties du contrat souscrit"; bank, medical and reimbursement data, postal addresses, phone numbers and e-mails "ne seraient pas concernées". "La CNIL n'est pas en mesure de vous indiquer si vous êtes concerné": each insurer informs its own members.
  • Ordre national des pharmaciens, 15 February 2024 (notice), https://www.ordre.pharmacien.fr/les-communications/focus-sur/les-actualites/cyberattaques-deux-operateurs-de-tiers-payant-vises: health professionals' data were taken too, among them "le login Viamedis ou Almerys", their e-mail address, their bank details (RIB), their FINESS and SIRET numbers; its advice: "changer le mot de passe de la messagerie électronique associée à leur compte Viamedis et/ou Almerys".
  • How the attackers got in: these notices do not say.

2.5 France Travail (formerly Pôle emploi) and Cap emploi, first quarter of 2024

  • CNIL, "France Travail : la CNIL enquête sur la fuite de données et donne des conseils pour se protéger", 13 March 2024 (regulator), https://www.cnil.fr/fr/france-travail-la-cnil-enquete-sur-la-fuite-de-donnees-et-donne-des-conseils-pour-se-proteger: "Le 8 mars, France Travail (anciennement Pôle emploi) et Cap emploi ont informé la CNIL avoir été victime d'une intrusion dans leurs systèmes d'information. Cette attaque aurait potentiellement permis l'extraction de données de 43 millions d'usagers. Ce nombre, à confirmer, concerne les personnes actuellement inscrites sur la liste des demandeurs d'emploi ou qui l'ont été au cours des 20 dernières années, ainsi que des personnes ayant un espace candidat sur francetravail.fr." The data: names, social security numbers, France Travail identifiers, e-mail and postal addresses, phone numbers; "les mots de passe et les coordonnées bancaires ne sont pas concernés".
  • CNIL, "Violation de données : sanction de 5 millions d'euros à l'encontre de FRANCE TRAVAIL", 29 January 2026 (regulator; the sanction of 22 January 2026), https://cnil.fr/fr/violation-de-donnees-sanction-5millions-france-travail: the attackers used "des techniques dites « d'ingénierie sociale »" to "usurper des comptes de conseillers de CAP EMPLOI, c'est-à-dire les structures chargées de l'accompagnement, du suivi et du maintien dans l'emploi des personnes en situation de handicap"; they reached the data "de l'ensemble des personnes inscrites, ou qui l'ont été au cours des 20 dernières années" (social security numbers, e-mail and postal addresses, phone numbers), but "n'ont pas accédé aux dossiers complets des demandeurs d'emploi". Failures found: the ways the Cap emploi advisers authenticated "n'étaient pas suffisamment robustes"; "l'insuffisance de mesures de journalisation"; the advisers' access rights "définies de manière trop large". The fine: 5 million euros, with an injunction ("une astreinte de 5 000 euros par jour de retard").

2.6 Free and Free Mobile (telecom operators), October 2024

  • CNIL, "Violation de données : sanction de 42 millions d'euros à l'encontre des sociétés FREE MOBILE et FREE", 14 January 2026 (regulator; deliberations SAN-2026-001 and SAN-2026-002 of 8 January 2026), https://www.cnil.fr/fr/sanction-free-2026: "En octobre 2024, un attaquant est parvenu à s'infiltrer dans le système d'information des sociétés et à accéder à des données personnelles concernant 24 millions de contrats d'abonnés, dont des IBAN lorsque les personnes étaient à la fois clientes de la société FREE MOBILE et de la société FREE." The authentication to the companies' VPN, "utilisée en particulier pour le travail à distance des employés", "n'était pas suffisamment robuste"; the measures to detect abnormal behaviour "étaient inefficaces". Fines of 27 million euros (Free Mobile) and 15 million euros (Free). Not a portal: a store of subscribers, entered through the staff's remote access.

2.7 FICOBA, the national register of every bank account in France, January to February 2026

  • The ministry's answer to written question no. 13264, Assemblée nationale (notice: the government's answer; the question published on 3 March 2026, the answer on 28 April 2026), https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/questions/QANR5L17QE13264: "A compter de la fin janvier 2026 et jusqu'au vendredi 13 février, un acteur malveillant, qui a usurpé les identifiants d'un fonctionnaire extérieur à la DGFiP et disposant d'accès dans le cadre de l'échange d'information entre ministères, a pu consulter une partie de ce fichier qui recense l'ensemble des comptes bancaires ouverts dans les établissements bancaires français"; "La violation de données résulte ainsi de l'utilisation du compte d'un agent d'une administration tierce et non pas d'une exploitation de failles de sécurité de l'application." The CNIL was notified on 16 February 2026, the notification completed on 23 February; the DGFiP informed each person concerned. The answer gives no count.
  • The same answer: "la mise en place en juin 2025 d'un deuxième facteur d'authentification pour la connexion des usagers particuliers à leur espace « impots.gouv.fr »" (3.5).

2.8 France Titres (ANTS), the portal ants.gouv.fr, spring 2026

  • The government's page "France Titres : le point sur l'incident de sécurité", info.gouv.fr, published 22 April 2026, modified 24 April 2026 (notice), https://www.info.gouv.fr/actualite/france-titres-le-point-sur-l-incident-de-securite, read in the Internet Archive's copy of 5 May 2026: France Titres detected "un incident de sécurité pouvant impliquer une divulgation de données issues du portail ants.gouv.fr. 11,7 millions de comptes seraient concernés." The portal is where people complete their vehicle registration, driving licence, identity card and passport formalities. The data concerned, subject to the investigation's conclusions, "ne permettent pas d'accès illégitime au compte nominatif sur le portail" and comprise "identifiant de connexion, civilité, nom, prénoms, adresse électronique, date de naissance, identifiant unique du compte, et, pour certains comptes, adresse postale, lieu de naissance, téléphone"; not the attachments or the biometric data. Its advice: change the account's password at the next login, and beware of messages that seem to come from France Titres. It was notified to the CNIL and reported to the Paris prosecutor; the Interior minister asked the Inspection générale de l'administration "pour établir la chaîne de responsabilité dans cet incident".

2.9 Vacaf, the family allowance funds' holiday-aid platform (vacaf.org), October 2026

  • The Cnaf's press release, "Incident de cybersécurité concernant le service Vacaf", Paris, 10 October 2026 (notice), https://www.caf.fr/sites/default/files/medias/cnaf/Nous_connaitre/Presse/2026/261010%20CPIncident%20de%20cybers%C3%A9curit%C3%A9%20concernant%20Vacaf_0.pdf: the platform vacaf.org is "hébergée par un prestataire externe, et pilotée par la Caf de l'Hérault"; "une fuite concernant les données des bénéficiaires de ce dispositif a été signalée"; access was suspended; "ni les données bancaires des allocataires ni les mots de passe d'accès aux services en ligne des Caf ne figurent parmi les données concernées"; ANSSI and the CNIL were informed. The release gives no count.

2.10 One tool, one intermediary, many organisations

  • MOVEit Transfer (Progress Software), from 27 May 2023. CISA and FBI, advisory AA23-158A, "#StopRansomware: CL0P Ransomware Gang Exploits CVE-2023-34362 MOVEit Vulnerability", 7 June 2023 (regulator: a government advisory), https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-158a: "beginning on May 27, 2023, CL0P Ransomware Gang, also known as TA505, began exploiting a previously unknown SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2023-34362) in Progress Software's managed file transfer (MFT) solution known as MOVEit Transfer"; the web shell it installed, LEMURLOOT, "was then used to steal data from underlying MOVEit Transfer databases". The advisory gives no count of the campaign's victims.
  • Change Healthcare (United States), 2024. HHS Office for Civil Rights, "Change Healthcare Cybersecurity Incident Frequently Asked Questions" (regulator; content last reviewed on 13 August 2025), https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/change-healthcare-cybersecurity-incident-frequently-asked-questions/index.html, read in the Internet Archive's copy of 11 October 2026: "On October 22, 2024, Change Healthcare notified OCR that approximately 100 million individual notices have been sent regarding this breach"; on 31 July 2025, "Change Healthcare notified OCR that approximately 192.7 million individuals have been impacted." One intermediary, about 192.7 million people.

2.11 The regulator's reading of 2024: more breaches, larger, through accounts and providers

  • CNIL, "Violations massives de données en 2024 : quels sont les principaux enseignements et mesures à prendre ?", 28 January 2025 (regulator), https://www.cnil.fr/fr/violations-massives-de-donnees-en-2024-quels-sont-les-principaux-enseignements-mesures-a-prendre: "le nombre de violations touchant plus d'un million de personnes a doublé en un an"; 5,629 breaches were notified to it in 2024, 20 % more than the year before; they led to "l'exfiltration des données de millions de Français". What it found: "les informations de connexion utilisées pour l'attaque avaient été compromis"; "les intrusions et exfiltrations n'ont pas été détectées par l'organisme avant la mise en vente des jeux de données"; "une part significative des incidents impliquait un sous-traitant". The causes it sees most often: generic or shared accounts; phishing ("Un utilisateur a reçu un message (hameçonnage) l'invitant à saisir son identifiant et son mot de passe sur un faux site"); malware that steals logins; logins sold by their user. It recommends, among its measures, multi-factor authentication.
  • Sioul's reading: the large stores are entered with compromised logins, often through a provider, and found out when the data are for sale.

What the portal model concentrates (Sioul's reading of 2.1 to 2.11): in each case one store, or one account with access to it, held the data of millions of people who had no part in its security: potentially 43 million at France Travail (by the CNIL's first figure), more than 33 million at two third-party payment operators, 11.7 million accounts at France Titres, 510,000 insured people through 19 professionals' accounts at the Assurance Maladie, a register of every bank account in France reached through one official's account. A message sent to one person, encrypted to that person's key, is in no such store.

3. The scattering, and what it costs people

3.1 The Défenseur des droits, 2022: the work moved onto the person, and the risk with it

  • Défenseur des droits, "Dématérialisation des services publics : trois ans après, où en est-on ?", report, February 2022 (regulator: France's rights ombudsman, an independent authority), https://www.vie-publique.fr/files/rapport/pdf/283832.pdf, pages as printed:
    • p. 23: "Ce transfert de charge financière ... s'accompagne d'un transfert de charge de travail : sur internet, l'usager doit s'informer, s'orienter, remplir seul des formulaires en ligne, suivre ses courriels sur une ou plusieurs messageries, mettre à jour son navigateur et les divers logiciels nécessaires, comprendre parfaitement les implications liées au fait de cocher telle ou telle case, s'adapter aux changements de sites, numériser des documents, etc."
    • p. 23: "La création d'un espace personnel sur un site public emporte souvent adhésion à la dématérialisation de l'ensemble des échanges avec le service concerné, sans que les usagers en soient pleinement conscients. Cette préemption du consentement aux communications électroniques peut notamment avoir des conséquences quant au respect des délais de réponse imposés à l'usager (s'il ne consulte pas son espace personnel ou sa messagerie électronique par exemple) et donc entraîner potentiellement un risque de rupture des droits."
    • p. 25, the people the Défenseure heard: "avoir peur de l'outil numérique, craindre de faire des erreurs, de ne pouvoir les rectifier et par conséquent de se retrouver en situation de rupture de droits voire de devoir rembourser des trop-perçus."
    • p. 58: "Ce transfert de charge s'accompagne d'un transfert de responsabilité : si l'usager se trompe, n'y arrive pas, n'est pas équipé ou connecté, ne comprend pas ce qui lui est demandé, il lui revient de se débrouiller pour réussir".
    • p. 59: "l'adhésion à un dispositif de dématérialisation d'une démarche emporte souvent consentement irréversible aux échanges dématérialisés exclusifs"; "des évolutions de la situation de vie peuvent engendrer une incapacité temporaire ou définitive à réaliser ses démarches sur internet"; "Il en va de la préservation d'un droit effectif au recours, qui est mis en péril si l'usager ne peut pas accéder aux notifications électroniques de décisions faisant grief." It asks that people keep the possibility of going back to paper, notably for the notification of decisions granting or refusing rights.
    • p. 75, recommendation 21: "Favoriser l'usage d'un identifiant unique pour accéder à l'ensemble des services publics dématérialisés"; on what followed, FranceConnect "ne couvre pas l'ensemble des démarches" (it reaches "plus de 1 000 services en ligne").
    • p. 6: "à 13 millions le nombre de personnes en difficulté avec le numérique dans notre pays", today as in 2019.
    • Sioul's reading: an illness, a burnout or a crisis is one of the "évolutions de la situation de vie" of p. 59; the report itself does not name these conditions.

3.2 The Défenseur des droits, annual report for 2025 (April 2026): an idealised user, changing logins, rights given up

  • Défenseur des droits, "Rapport annuel d'activité 2025", April 2026 (regulator), https://www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/sites/default/files/2026-04/ddd_rapport-annuel-2025_20260407.pdf:
    • From the second part of its survey "Accès aux droits", published in October 2025: the people who reported difficulties with their administrative procedures "sont 61 % en 2024 alors qu'elles étaient 39 % en 2016. Plus d'une personne sur deux dit être en difficulté pour faire des démarches numérisées seule."
    • "La dématérialisation ... s'est construite à partir d'un modèle d'usager idéalisé, à la fois disponible, autonome et connecté." (Sioul's reading: the premise of Sioul's README, "Modern admin assumes someone always available and always at full strength", in the Défenseur's words.)
    • "Et les jeunes, à l'aise avec leur téléphone et les réseaux sociaux, peuvent être plus en difficulté lorsqu'il s'agit de remplir des formulaires administratifs ou de s'identifier via des systèmes d'authentification qui changent sans cesse."
    • "Sans la possibilité d'être aidée par des proches, près d'une personne sur quatre, à force de temps perdu, de découragement, voire d'angoisse, finit ainsi par renoncer à des droits auxquels elle peut pourtant prétendre."
    • "plus d'une personne sur deux se déclare non autonome pour réaliser des démarches en ligne ou indique les éviter."
    • A case (amicable settlement RA-2025-148): since 2 May 2022, every person who applies for asylum in metropolitan France receives "des identifiants d'accès à un espace numérique personnel sécurisé par lequel l'OFPRA notifie les convocations aux entretiens et les décisions"; a claimant "n'a pas pu exercer son droit au recours" against the rejection of her claim, because the decision had not been put on her secure personal space; OFPRA notified its decision again.
    • Sioul's reading: a secure personal space is where decisions are notified; a person who cannot see, or is not shown, what is there loses time limits and rights.

3.3 The portals' own words: ordinary mail is not safe enough, so come here

  • Société Générale, "Découvrez la messagerie sécurisée" (notice), https://particuliers.sg.fr/services-en-ligne/messagerie-securisee-conseiller: messages are written and received "directement dans votre espace client ou via l'Appli SG"; "La sécurité et la confidentialité y sont assurées, de façon renforcée par rapport à une boîte mail classique."; "Ni SG ni votre Conseiller ne vous solliciteront sur votre boîte mail personnelle pour vous demander des données personnelles. Si vous recevez de tels emails, ils sont frauduleux."
  • La Banque Postale, "Messagerie sécurisée" (notice), https://www.labanquepostale.fr/particulier/comptes-et-cartes/espaces-clients/messagerie-securisee.html, read in the Internet Archive's copy of 24 August 2026: "Utilisez la messagerie sécurisée pour échanger par e-mail avec votre conseiller en toute sécurité"; the exchanges "sont sécurisés pour garantir la confidentialité de vos données"; it is reached "depuis les espaces authentifiés de La Banque Postale".
  • DGFiP, "J'utilise ma messagerie sécurisée", guide sheet 09, dated "DGFiP – 01/2026" (notice), https://www.impots.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/media/srp/plsu/fiches/09_impots_gouv_fr_utiliser_messagerie_securisee.pdf: "Attention : Vous recevez un courriel de confirmation de votre demande puis un courriel vous informera de son traitement. Vous devrez vous connecter à votre espace particulier pour lire la réponse." One logs in with one's tax number and password, or through FranceConnect; since June 2025, with a second factor too (2.7).
  • Sioul's reading: the organisations' own reason for the portal is that ordinary mail is not safe enough; their own consequence is that the person's real mailbox receives at most a note that a message waits, while the content lives elsewhere, behind another login and another code.

3.4 Logins and codes, per portal: what the accessibility standards say

  • W3C, WCAG 2.2, success criterion 3.3.8, Accessible Authentication (Minimum), level AA (standard; W3C Recommendation, 12 December 2024), https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#accessible-authentication-minimum: "A cognitive function test (such as remembering a password or solving a puzzle) is not required for any step in an authentication process unless that step provides at least one of the following"; its Note 2: "Examples of mechanisms that satisfy this criterion include: support for password entry by password managers to reduce memory need, and copy and paste to reduce the cognitive burden of re-typing."
  • W3C, Understanding SC 3.3.8 (standard), https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/accessible-authentication-minimum.html: "Some people with cognitive disabilities cannot solve puzzles, memorize a username and password, or retype one-time passcodes."; "memorizing a username and password places a very high or impossible burden upon people with certain cognitive disabilities, as do additional steps often added to authentication processes."
  • W3C, "Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities" (COGA), Working Group Note, 29 April 2021 (standard), https://www.w3.org/TR/coga-usable/:
    • Objective 6, "Ensure processes do not rely on memory": "Memory barriers stop people with cognitive disabilities from using content. This includes long passwords to log in".
    • User story 3.6.2, Accessible Authentication: "As a user who has memory impairments and often forgets passwords, and has impaired executive function, I need a method of secure web site authentication that I can use."
    • On security: "many people who cannot copy and paste passwords or use two-step authorization codes ask a caregiver to help them. As caregivers are often just temporary employees, this leaves the user exposed. Making passwords longer or requiring users change them regularly increases these unsafe practices and can actually make the application less secure."
    • Patterns 4.7.1, "Provide a Login that Does Not Rely on Memory or Other Cognitive Skills", and 4.7.2, "Allow the User a Simple, Single Step, Login"; to avoid: "Using two-step authentication that requires copying. Using a password and not allowing pasting into the field."
  • Sioul's reading: the standards body for web accessibility names the password per site and the copied code as barriers for people whose memory or executive function is impaired, names password managers as a remedy, and says that pushing such people onto helpers leaves them less safe.

3.5 A second factor, per portal

  • impots.gouv.fr: "la mise en place en juin 2025 d'un deuxième facteur d'authentification pour la connexion des usagers particuliers à leur espace « impots.gouv.fr »" (the ministry's answer of 28 April 2026, 2.7).
  • Banks: Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2), article 97(1) (law), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015L2366: "Member States shall ensure that a payment service provider applies strong customer authentication where the payer: (a) accesses its payment account online; (b) initiates an electronic payment transaction; (c) carries out any action through a remote channel which may imply a risk of payment fraud or other abuses." So each bank's customer area asks a second factor of its own. (That it is usually the bank's own app is common knowledge, not this text's.)
  • What each extra step costs people whose memory or executive function is impaired: 3.4.

3.6 Research on digital self-service and administrative burden

  • Madsen, Lindgren & Melin (2022) (qualitative; abstract read), "The accidental caseworker – How digital self-service influences citizens' administrative burden", Government Information Quarterly 39(1), 101653, doi:10.1016/j.giq.2021.101653, https://researcher.itu.dk/da/publications/the-accidental-caseworker-how-digital-self-service-influences-cit/: observations, interviews and focus groups with single mothers who applied for public benefits; "citizens' administrative burden increases—they must learn how to complete tasks that professional caseworkers previously conducted"; digital self-service "can also reduce citizens' administrative burden through the online provision of information and automatic data transfers", and its anonymous process "may reduce the psychological costs" and stigma. Both sides are cited.
  • Already in Sioul's research, as cited there: Moynihan, Herd & Harvey 2015; Christensen et al. 2020; Bell et al. 2023 (research.md, findings 3, 29 and 30); Herd & Moynihan 2018, Halling & Bækgaard 2024 and Holkar, Evans & Langston 2018 (life-admin.md, §1.2; research.md, finding 30).

3.7 Executive function under ADHD, depression, PTSD and burnout: what the reviews say, and no more

  • ADHD. Willcutt, Doyle, Nigg, Faraone & Pennington (2005) (meta, 83 studies; abstract read), Biological Psychiatry 57(11), doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.02.006: "Groups with ADHD exhibited significant impairment on all EF tasks. Effect sizes for all measures fell in the medium range (.46-.69), but the strongest and most consistent effects were obtained on measures of response inhibition, vigilance, working memory, and planning"; executive weaknesses "are neither necessary nor sufficient to cause all cases of ADHD".
  • Depression. Snyder (2013) (meta, 113 studies; abstract read), Psychological Bulletin 139(1), doi:10.1037/a0028727: "MDD is reliably associated with impaired performance on neuropsychological measures of EF, with effect sizes ranging from 0.32 to 0.97"; the deficits are greater with more severe current symptoms.
  • PTSD. Scott et al. (2015) (meta, 60 studies, 4,108 participants; abstract read), Psychological Bulletin 141(1), doi:10.1037/a0038039: the largest effects "in verbal learning (d = -.62), speed of information processing (d = -.59), attention/working memory (d = -.50), and verbal memory (d = -.46)".
  • Burnout. Deligkaris, Panagopoulou, Montgomery & Masoura (2014) (meta: a systematic review of 15 studies), Work & Stress 28(2), doi:10.1080/02678373.2014.909545: burnout goes with poorer attention, memory and executive function on objective tests; the findings are heterogeneous and the samples small (time-estimation.md rates it moderate to weak).
  • How far they go: these are group averages on laboratory tasks. They support this sentence: watching many portals, each with its own login and code, asks most of the working memory, planning and attention that these conditions lower on average. They do not show that a person with one of these conditions cannot do it, nor that portals harm them: no study found measures the use of portals in these groups. Bell et al. 2023 comes closest: people who reported ADHD lost aid more often for missed requirements (research.md, finding 3).

4. The alternative's grounds

4.1 Official advice: a password manager, a different password for each service, a factor you possess

  • ANSSI, "Recommandations relatives à l'authentification multifacteur et aux mots de passe", guide ANSSI-PG-078, version 2.0, 8 October 2021 (guidance: France's national cybersecurity agency), https://messervices.cyber.gouv.fr/documents-guides/anssi-guide-authentification_multifacteur_et_mots_de_passe.pdf: R1 "Privilégier l'authentification multifacteur"; R2 "Privilégier l'utilisation de moyens d'authentification forts", "reposant sur des mécanismes cryptographiques conformes au RGS"; in its summary for users, "Privilégier l'utilisation de l'authentification reposant sur un facteur de possession"; R33 "[Utilisateur] Utiliser un mot de passe différent pour chaque service"; R34 "[Utilisateur] Utiliser un coffre-fort de mots de passe": "Il est recommandé d'utiliser un coffre-fort de mots de passe permettant facilement de générer des mots de passe robustes et différents pour chaque service". Its glossary defines FIDO U2F and FIDO2 as a standard "visant à simplifier l'utilisation de l'authentification multifacteur", and phishing as passing oneself off "pour un tiers de confiance", a bank for instance.
  • CNIL, deliberation 2022-100 of 21 July 2022 (regulator: its recommendation on passwords), https://www.cnil.fr/sites/cnil/files/atoms/files/deliberation-2022-100-du-21-juillet-2022_recommandation-aux-mots-de-passe.pdf: §32, "Afin d'encourager l'utilisation des gestionnaires de mots de passe et d'améliorer l'accessibilité numérique, des mécanismes ayant pour objet ou effet d'interdire aux utilisateurs de coller un mot de passe dans les champs de saisie ne doivent pas être mis en œuvre"; trainings "pourront utilement inclure un encouragement à l'utilisation de gestionnaires de mots de passe"; §11, health data, large-scale processing and "la fourniture d'un service de messagerie électronique ou d'un gestionnaire de mots de passe" call for stronger measures, "comme par exemple la mise en œuvre d'un processus d'authentification multi-facteurs". Its page of 14 October 2022, https://www.cnil.fr/fr/mots-de-passe-recommandations-pour-maitriser-sa-securite: "Les solutions d'authentification forte ou à plusieurs facteurs fournissent une meilleure protection".
  • NIST SP 800-63B, revision 4 (2025) (guidance), https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/sp800-63b.html: "Verifiers SHALL allow the use of password managers and autofill functionality. Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use the "paste" function when entering a password to facilitate password manager use when password autofill APIs are unavailable. Password managers have been shown to increase the likelihood that subscribers will choose stronger passwords"; "Verifiers and CSPs SHALL NOT require subscribers to change passwords periodically"; "Verifiers SHALL offer at least one phishing-resistant authentication option at AAL2".
  • Sioul's reading: the French security agency, the French regulator and NIST all ask for a password manager, and for sites that let it work; a different password for each service; and a second factor, preferably a physical, phishing-resistant one. Sioul's Bitwarden client and its security keys follow those recommendations: they are not an enthusiast's extra.

4.2 End-to-end encrypted mail, with the key on a hardware token

  • RFC 9580, "OpenPGP" (standard; July 2024; it obsoletes RFC 4880), https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9580: "OpenPGP provides data confidentiality and integrity for messages and data files by using public key and/or symmetric encryption and digital signatures."
  • RFC 8551, "S/MIME Version 4.0 Message Specification" (standard; April 2019), https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8551: S/MIME provides "authentication, message integrity, and non-repudiation of origin (using digital signatures), and data confidentiality (using encryption)"; it "can be used by traditional mail user agents (MUAs)".
  • "Functional Specification of the OpenPGP application on ISO Smart Card Operating Systems", version 3.4.1 (2020) (standard: the OpenPGP card's specification), https://gnupg.org/ftp/specs/OpenPGP-smart-card-application-3.4.1.pdf: §4.4.3.8, "Keys that are generated inside of a card are never know[n] in the external world and have a higher level of security"; its table of access conditions gives the cardholder's private key (5F48) a reading condition of "Never". The card signs and decrypts by itself, after the user's PIN. Sioul's note on it: openpgp-card.md.
  • Sioul's reading, what decentralisation changes: a message encrypted to one person's key is unreadable to every server it crosses and to every provider that keeps it; a breach of a mail provider on the way, or of the person's mailbox, yields ciphertext. No portal holds one store of everyone's messages to take. It does not protect the sender's own records (a database of claimants stays a database): encryption protects the letter, not the office's files. The GDPR's article 34(3)(a) says it in legal terms: data made "unintelligible to any person who is not authorised to access it" are what make a breach harmless.

4.3 Autocrypt: keys found without a key server

  • Autocrypt Level 1, version 1.1 (standard: a specification written by mail-program developers), https://docs.autocrypt.org/level1.html: "Autocrypt aims to incrementally and carefully replace cleartext e-mail with end-to-end encrypted e-mail."; "Level 1 makes it easy for users to encrypt, based on an automatic and decentralized key distribution mechanism"; but "Autocrypt Level 1 only defends against passive data collection attacks." Sioul takes keys only from mail it verified, which adds the sender's authentication on top (the user guide's Encrypted mail).

4.4 Organisations that already take or send encrypted mail

  • Sparkasse Rhein-Nahe (a German savings bank), "Secure E-Mail - Kundeninformation", "Stand: 09.2019" (notice), https://www.sparkasse-rhein-nahe.de/content/dam/myif/spk-rhein-nahe/work/dokumente/pdf/allgemein/Secure%20E-Mail%20Kundeninformation.pdf: a service "für Sie kostenfreien"; three ways, chosen by the customer at registration, "Eine Änderung des gewählten Verfahrens ist im Nachgang jederzeit möglich": "Variante 1: Nutzung Secure WebMail-Portal"; "Variante 2: Verwendung eines S/MIME Zertifikates", "um sichere Nachrichten direkt in Ihrem persönlichen Postfach lesen und beantworten zu können"; "Variante 3: Verwendung eines PGP-Schlüssels", likewise "direkt in Ihrem persönlichen Postfach". Ways 2 and 3 need a mail program installed on the computer: "Wenn Sie für die E-Mail-Kommunikation einen Web-Mail-Dienst (z. B. GMX, Web.de, Gmail) verwenden, stehen Ihnen die Möglichkeiten 2 und 3 leider nicht zur Verfügung."; and "S/MIME und PGP richten sich eher an erfahrene Anwender oder Institutionen." Dated: this was its offer in 2019; its current page was not checked.
    • Sioul's reading: a bank can keep its portal as the fallback and still send each customer's letters, end-to-end encrypted, into the customer's own mailbox. That is the model Sioul's design asks for; the obstacles the leaflet names, a mail program and the experience to use it, are what Sioul means to carry for the person.
  • Niedersächsische Justiz (the justice administration of Lower Saxony), "Informationen zur sicheren E-Mail-Kommunikation mit der Nds. Justiz", version 1.0, 25 March 2019 (notice), https://cert.justiz.niedersachsen.de/Informationen_externe_Partner.pdf: "Ohne eine gesonderte Absicherung ist die Datenübermittlung im Internet zwischen Absender und Empfänger völlig ungeschützt und vergleichbar mit dem Versand einer mit Bleistift beschriebenen Postkarte."; "verwendet die Nds. Justiz sichere Standardverfahren zum Austausch von verschlüsselten E-Mails"; S/MIME and PGP, "ausschließlich für Verwaltungsangelegenheiten" (filings with legal effect go through the EGVP or De-Mail).
  • CERT-FR (the national computer emergency response team of ANSSI), "Contact" (notice), https://cert.cyber.gouv.fr/contact/ (its former address, https://www.cert.ssi.gouv.fr/contact/, leads there): it gives its OpenPGP key, with its identifier and fingerprint, to download, and publishes its RFC 2350 file with "la signature PGP du fichier". A French public body that takes OpenPGP mail and signs what it publishes. (The fingerprint is not copied here: read it on the page.)

4.5 Honest limits

  • Usability, the classic finding. Whitten & Tygar (1999) (study: a usability test), "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt: A Usability Evaluation of PGP 5.0", 8th USENIX Security Symposium, https://www.usenix.org/conference/8th-usenix-security-symposium/why-johnny-cant-encrypt-usability-evaluation-pgp-50: given 90 minutes to sign and encrypt a message with PGP 5.0, "the majority of them were unable to do so successfully"; the authors conclude that PGP 5.0 "is not usable enough to provide effective security for most computer users". Sioul's reading: the case for building encryption into the mail program, its keys found and kept by the program (Autocrypt, the Web Key Directory), rather than leaving it to the person.
  • Client flaws (EFAIL). Poddebniak et al. (2018) (study), "Efail: Breaking S/MIME and OpenPGP Email Encryption using Exfiltration Channels", 27th USENIX Security Symposium, https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/poddebniak: "malleability gadgets" reveal the plaintext of encrypted mail; "exfiltration channels exist for 23 of the 35 tested S/MIME email clients and 10 of the 28 tested OpenPGP email clients". RFC 9580 (2024) has since added authenticated encryption (version 2 of the SEIPD packet). Sioul loads nothing remote and runs nothing in a message, which closes the exfiltration channels the paper used (client.md, "Reading what comes from outside"); that it closes every such channel is not tested.
  • Metadata. RFC 9580, section 13.11, "Traffic Analysis": "the size of the data may leak information to an attacker"; an observer may be "interested in metadata (e.g., which individual is trying to contact another individual)". The sender, the recipients, the dates and, in Sioul as in most mail programs, the subject stay readable (the guide's Mail page: "The subject is not encrypted").
  • Keys can be lost. A key generated on a card is never known outside it (4.2): a card reset or lost takes the means to open past mail with it, unless the key was made elsewhere and kept in a backup. The guide's Accounts page says to keep the revocation certificate of a key made in Sioul apart from the device.
  • Adoption. The organisation must send encrypted mail too. In 2019 a German savings bank offered it, to customers with an installed mail program only (4.4). No French public service or bank was found that takes OpenPGP or S/MIME mail from the public, but CERT-FR.
  • The phone. Sioul's OpenPGP card works on computers; not yet on a phone (client.md, "Your keys on a security key"; openpgp-card.md, §4). Bitwarden works there with the master password.

What Sioul does with it

  • Built: OpenPGP signing and encrypting at Send, with Autocrypt (keys taken from verified mail only) and the Web Key Directory (client.md, "PGP"); keys on an OpenPGP card, on computers, tried with a real key (a YubiKey 5) on Linux on 8 October 2026 (client.md, "Your keys on a security key"); Bitwarden read by Sioul's own client, opened with a security key as the second step or alone as a passkey, and FIDO2 keys in the sites (sites.md), not yet tried with a real key; Sites, where the portals are pinned, each logged in once, their notifications held for the person's hours and said in one line on the Porch (sites.md).
  • Not built: the portals' notification mails turned into "a letter waits at" the portal (porch.md, "Next"); "File this page" into a project (roadmap.md); the subject protected (protected headers), and S/MIME (the user guide's Mail page, OpenPGP); the OpenPGP card on a phone.

What the sources do not say

  1. That the messages in a portal's secure mailbox were read. No notice or regulator found says so. What is sourced: the services and stores behind the portals, their staff's, partners' and providers' accounts, and one portal's account data (France Titres), were breached. Say "the services and stores behind these portals", never "the secure mailboxes were hacked".
  2. How many portals a person must watch. No study or official count was found. Say "one more place for each office", without a number.
  3. That every portal sends a note without content. Sourced for the tax office's own guide alone. Say "at most, a note".
  4. Counts, causes and names that only the press, or attackers, give. For Pôle emploi's provider in 2023, the notice names neither the provider nor the tool, and gives no count; for France Travail, only the CNIL's figure is used; for France Titres, how the access happened and when it was detected are not taken from the press; for Viamedis and Almerys, how the attackers got in is not in the notices; for the family allowance funds, the counts that attackers claimed are not confirmed, and the Cnaf gave no count for Vacaf. None of these is used.
  5. A French bank's or insurer's customer area breached since 2020. None was found confirmed by a notice or a regulator. FICOBA is a state register, Free a telecom operator, Viamedis and Almerys third-party payment operators, not insurers.
  6. Health portals, such as appointment platforms. Not checked.
  7. How many organisations or people MOVEit reached. The advisory gives no count for the campaign.
  8. Breaches known from the press or the courts alone, such as that of a psychotherapy centre's patient records in Finland: not used here, since no notice or regulator was read.
  9. Any study of portals, or of missed portal messages, in people with ADHD, depression, burnout or PTSD. None found. The link rests on group-average findings on executive function, on the W3C's accessibility texts, on the Défenseur des droits' reports and on Bell et al. 2023. Say "on average" and "makes harder", never "cannot" or "harms".
  10. French banks or public services that take OpenPGP or S/MIME mail from the public. Only CERT-FR was found. The German examples date from 2019: their current pages were not checked.
  11. "Natively on Android". Sioul's OpenPGP card is not built on the phone; Bitwarden works there with the master password. "Not yet on a phone" until it ships.
  12. "Security keys stop phishing", as a general fact. Sourced here only as NIST's call for a phishing-resistant option; WebAuthn's binding of a key to the site's origin was not read for this note.
  13. The read receipts of Mon espace santé. The 2021 specification describes them; it may have changed since: not used.
  14. The share of mail encrypted between servers today. Only Durumeric et al.'s figures of 2015 were found: no current share is given.
  15. The UK regulator's guidance on mail. Too thin on this point to cite.