Encrypted messaging company Telegram has announced that it will share user data with law enforcement agencies to combat illegal activity on its platform. This significant privacy policy reversal comes after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France last month.
Decryption Report Telegram, the popular messaging app known for its strong encryption and user privacy protections, is making significant changes to crack down on crime following the recent arrest of its CEO, Pavel Durov. In a post on Monday, Durov said that Telegram will now share user data, including IP addresses and phone numbers, with authorities if users violate the app's rules and engage in illegal activities.
The move comes after Durov himself was arrested by French police last month on charges that Telegram had failed to comply with law enforcement requests and allowed illegal content to proliferate on the platform. Durov has posted €5 million bail but remains under French judicial oversight.
Earlier this month, Durov criticised the arrests.
Writing on his Telegram channel, Durov expressed surprise at learning that he could be held liable for the illegal actions of others on the platform. He argued that when a state is unhappy with an internet service, it usually files a lawsuit against the service itself, not the CEO. “Using pre-smartphone law to sue a CEO for crimes committed by third parties on a platform he controls is a flawed approach,” Durov said.
“Telegram search is for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal products,” Durov said in explaining the policy change. The Telegram team now uses artificial intelligence to make search “much safer” and actively blocks attempts to find or share illegal content through search. Users who still try to do so “may have their IP address and phone number disclosed to the relevant authorities in response to a legitimate legal request,” Durov warned.
With around one billion users worldwide, Telegram prides itself on offering a secure, encrypted communications platform. But it also attracts criminals and scammers who exploit its privacy to sell drugs, carry out crypto scams, share abuse images and evade law enforcement. French authorities also claim that Durov is under investigation for unauthorized use of certain cryptocurrencies in the country.
The crackdown comes as Telegram gains further traction in the crypto space with the rise of the Open Network (TON) blockchain, which powers an ecosystem of popular crypto games and tokens on the app. Telegram originally developed TON but abandoned it in 2020 due to regulatory issues. However, independent developers have since revived the network, and Telegram now employs it to pay channel operators a share of advertising revenue and power its in-app currency.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship.
