Telegram CEO Pavel Durov recently announced that Telegram would be handing over user data (such as phone numbers and IP adresses) to the authorities. Now it turns out that it has been doing so since 2018.
My previous post may have seemed to announce a major shift in how Telegram works. But in reality, little has changed.
Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries.
For example, in Brazil, we disclosed data for 75 legal requests in Q1 (January-March) 2024, 63 in Q2, and 65 in Q3. In India, our largest market, we satisfied 2461 legal requests in Q1, 2151 in Q2, and 2380 in Q3.
To reduce confusion, last week, we streamlined and unified our privacy policy across different countries.
Telegram was built to protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations — we do not allow criminals to abuse our platform or evade justice.
Full text of the post.
📰 My previous post may have seemed to announce a major shift in how Telegram works. But in reality, little has changed.
🌐 Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries.
⚖️ Whenever we received a properly formed legal request via relevant communication lines, we would verify it and disclose the IP addresses/phone numbers of dangerous criminals. This process had been in place long before last week.
🤖 Our @transparency bot demonstrates exactly that. This bot shows the number of processed requests for user data.
✉️ For example, in Brazil, we disclosed data for 75 legal requests in Q1 (January-March) 2024, 63 in Q2, and 65 in Q3. In India, our largest market, we satisfied 2461 legal requests in Q1, 2151 in Q2, and 2380 in Q3.
📈 In Europe, there was an uptick in the number of valid legal requests we received in Q3. This increase was caused by the fact that more EU authorities started to use the correct communication line for their requests, the one mandated by the EU DSA law. Information about this contact point has been publicly available to anyone who viewed the Telegram website or googled “Telegram EU address for law enforcement” since early 2024.
🤝 To reduce confusion, last week, we streamlined and unified our privacy policy across different countries. But our core principles haven’t changed. We’ve always strived to comply with relevant local laws — as long as they didn’t go against our values of freedom and privacy.
🛡 Telegram was built to protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations — we do not allow criminals to abuse our platform or evade justice.
ok this feels like a real hot take. but i am somewhat glad about this. in my country telegram has the reputation to be the nazi (and sometimes the pedo-) app. so i am not unhappy those people online activity can be used against them in court. That beeing said i can respect people who feel otherwise.
I am not sure that this news relates to passing the content of telegram messages to any authority. If i read it correctly it is just about sharing personal information such as ip adress, phone number etc.
i do not get that from the resources provided here and havent heard about that either… the ip adress ect. is shared with authorities only, which i personaly dont disagree with per se. maybe i was unclear i my first coment about that tho.
If you got info about telegram sharing that info with private institutions, and are willing to share, id love to read that. that would make me deinstall the app rather quickly ^^
I’m with you. If they’re verifying the information request, as in vetting it to determine if there is actual criminal behavior going on i.e. pedos/money laundering/etc, then good. Hand them over to the authorities.
They state that they don’t cater to corrupt governments or organizations - good.
Everyone here arguing against these things are throwing up major red flags. Didn’t the CEO just go to court because he wasn’t handing over information willy nilly? I would hope Signal and Proton would be doing the same things.
