"Privacy is something that is essential for freedom" says Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton, an online privacy protection firm, explaining that recent attacks on freedom of speech had resulted in a spike in demand for the service. "In Russia, for example, we saw actually a 9,000% increase in signups... and this happened exactly at the moment that social media sites started getting blocked" he says, adding that "in Iran, we probably, I would say it was factor of 10 at least,in the order of magnitude increase in the number of users". Speaking to AFP, Yen says that Proton can use this information to spot attacks on democracy before they hit the headlines. "If we're tracking the number of signups and when we see spikes, they almost match and correlate one to one to places where democracy and freedom are under attack." IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES