After months of chatter, Luxchat, the Luxembourg instant messaging service guaranteeing end-to-end encryption for the general public and businesses is finally out. While the application is currently free of charge, paid services in the future are likely.
Wishing to offer an alternative to existing instant messaging applications, LU-CIX GIE, the Ministry of Digitalization, the Chamber of Commerce, and Luxchat providers partnered to launch this ambitious project.
Luxchat stands out from most other instant messaging services by ensuring the ‘highest level of security’, refraining from using its users’ data for commercial purposes, and complying with privacy regulations such as the GDPR.
“With Luxchat, businesses and their employees will have a valuable tool for secure instant communication.”
Carlo Thelen, Director-General of the Chamber of Commerce
A Luxchat ecosystem
Initially offered to government employees for their professional communications under the name Luxchat4Gov, Luxchat is now available to the entire public as well. Apart from guaranteeing end-to-end encryption from an IT provider hosted and operating in Luxembourg, the providers who joined Luxchat also had to ensure that they could guarantee interoperability between different Luxchat providers.
The five providers currently include ION, Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity (for cybersecurity professionals), LU-CIX GIE, Luxembourg Online, and Mixvoip. POST Luxembourg has chosen to recommend LU-CIX GIE as a provider for its clients. Other entities are welcome to join.
“Each provider can offer their users free or paid usage of Luxchat or develop value-added services around the solution,” said Steve Breier, Director, Head of Finance & IT at the Chamber of Commerce.
More secure than email and SMS
“Luxchat addresses many needs expressed by the market. But it naturally prevails when one wishes to have a trusted channel for daily communication, said Nicolas Debeffe, Luxchat Project Manager at LU-CIX GIE, adding: “More secure than email or SMS exchanges, which are not end-to-end encrypted, Luxchat contributes to bringing various stakeholders together at the national level.
Luxchat and Luxchat4Gov are interoperable, allowing users from different platforms to contact each other.
The Luxchat application can be downloaded on iOS and Android and is available through a web browser. Desktop versions of the application will be offered for macOS and Windows operating systems in the near future.
