Introducing Born Private: Reserve a Proton Mail address for your child before Big Tech gets to them first

Be honest: how many of you still have your old Gmail or Outlook address lingering in the background?

You made the switch to Proton. You believe in what we’re building here. But that old address is still tied to years of account logins, purchase history, password resets, and recovery flows. Cutting it off completely feels impossible, not because you want to keep it, but because so much of your digital past is tangled up in it.

We hear this from the community constantly.

And it got us thinking: what if the next generation never had to make that trade-off in the first place?

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This isn’t a niche concern anymore

We recently ran a survey on how parents think about their kids’ online privacy.

One thing stood out clearly:

78% of parents are worried about their child’s online privacy.
More than half said they’re very worried.

At the same time, kids are going online earlier than ever:

→ 76% already have their own device
→ 44% have an email address
→ 42% are on social media

So for many kids, a digital identity starts early, often before they understand what that actually means long-term.

And once it starts, it’s hard to undo:

→ 62% of parents said they would erase their child’s digital footprint if they could
→ 41% said they’d share less about their child if they could start over

Even more telling:
76% of kids with email are using Gmail.

Meaning that first digital identity often begins inside platforms built around data collection.

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Introducing Born Private

Last week, we launched Born Private. Parents can now reserve a Proton Mail address for their child:

→ The address is locked and preserved for up to 15 years

→ The inbox stays completely sealed; no messages, no activity, no data collection

→ When the child is ready, they or their parent activate it with a secure voucher

No profiling from day one. No decade-old data trail to untangle later. Just a clean, private starting point for their digital life.

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For those of you still wrestling with your old inbox: we get it.

That’s exactly why we built this, so your kids won’t have to.

We’re all born private. Let’s make sure the next generation stays that way.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you could reset your own digital footprint, would you?

And feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, we read everything.

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This is our first post here — if you want more on privacy, subscribe and follow along.

Stay safe,
Proton Team