Bomb threat mails: Google refuses to share data of the email senders

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: In a setback to the investigation into the hoax bomb threat emails that were sent to several institutions and government offices in the city, the search giant Google has denied sharing crucial details which could help in tracking down the mail senders.

In December last year, more than 50 schools received hoax bomb threats into their official mail Ids.

During the first week of January this year, several organisations including Visvesvaraya Museum and Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru received a similar threat mail.

Recently, Kendriya Vidyalaya IISc authorities filed a complaint with the police after they found a bomb threat mail in their inbox on February 4.

Upon inspection, the police found that all the threat mails were a hoax.

However taking the matter seriously, the police registered various cases regarding the threat mails and began investigation to trace the senders.

According to sources from police, most of the mail Ids used in these mails were created using a Cyprus-based private domain in email service provider, 'Beeble.com,' which is an end-to-end encrypted email service.

Following queries by the city police, Beeble.com reportedly responded that the email sender used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to send the email.

Later it was learnt that the email sender has used Switzerland-based Proton VPN, also known for its endto-end encryption and focus on privacy.

However, Proton VPN asked the Bengaluru Police to put up the request through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLTA).

"This is obviously a long circuitous route — we need to send a questionnaire to the Crime Investigation Department (CID), who will send it to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who will, in turn, send it to the Interpol and to local Swiss authorities, who will send the query to Proton VPN," said a senior police official.

Meanwhile the Bengaluru police wrote to interpol seeking their help in tracing the accused following which the interpol had sent a notice to Google requesting details of the persons who had used the particular Ids to send emails.

After a brief hiatus, officials from Google have responded to the notices sent by the interpol, saying that the company is not bound to provide any information of any Gmail account holder.

Gmail also said that revealing the name of the email sender is not covered by any law.

Google said that the company's mission is to keep user's personal details and information confidential and such information cannot be shared for any reason.

The Bengaluru police have expressed concerns that the investigation will hit a dead end, just like the probe into the hoax bomb threat emails to over 28 schools in 2022.