German e2e encrypted email provider Tutanota has been ordered by a regional court to develop a function that allows it to monitor an individual account.

Despite the absurdity of a regional court treating an email provider as an ISP -- in apparent contradiction of earlier CJEU guidance -- Tutanota is nonetheless required to comply with the order, and develop a surveillance function for the specific inbox, while its appeal continues.

A spokeswoman for Tutanota confirmed it has told the court it will develop the function by the end of this year -- whereas she suggested its appeals process is likely to take "months" more to run its course.

The Cologne court order is for a surveillance function to be implemented on a single Tutanota account that had been used for an extortion attempt. The Tutanota spokeswoman said the monitoring function will only apply to future emails this account receives -- it will not affect emails previously received.