Telegram's founder and CEO Pavel Durov clarified on his channel Wednesday that "little has changed" on the privacy policy and features of his platform after one of his previous announcements drew concern that users' data and private messages would become more vulnerable.
He stated, "Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries," adding, "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."
He provided examples of past legal and governmental requests from various countries which Telegram complied with. He also provided a link to a "transparency bot." When used, anyone can request a report of fulfilled requests in the user's specific country. The latest report for the United States said that 14 requests for IP addresses and/or phone numbers were fulfilled and 108 users were affected.
Durov clarified, "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."
One of his previous announcements, posted on September 23, appeared to indicate that Telegram had vigorously ramped up security measures, conversely putting users' private, encrypted messages and data at risk. This came almost exactly a month after Durov had been arrested in Paris and indicted on six charges related to the regulation of illegal content on Telegram including "complicity in the offenses of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed for… organized gang distribution of images of minors presenting child pornography, drug trafficking."
He stated, "Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries," adding, "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."
He provided examples of past legal and governmental requests from various countries which Telegram complied with. He also provided a link to a "transparency bot." When used, anyone can request a report of fulfilled requests in the user's specific country. The latest report for the United States said that 14 requests for IP addresses and/or phone numbers were fulfilled and 108 users were affected.
Durov clarified, "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."
One of his previous announcements, posted on September 23, appeared to indicate that Telegram had vigorously ramped up security measures, conversely putting users' private, encrypted messages and data at risk. This came almost exactly a month after Durov had been arrested in Paris and indicted on six charges related to the regulation of illegal content on Telegram including "complicity in the offenses of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed for… organized gang distribution of images of minors presenting child pornography, drug trafficking."
