Telegram shares users’ details with many states, CEO Durov admits

The platform has been cooperating with authorities in criminal cases since 2018, its co-founder and chief has revealed

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov revealed on Wednesday that the messenger service has been complying with privacy policies in several countries and has been properly disclosing information about criminals to authorities for the past six years.

The Russian-born tech billionaire has remained under orders not to leave France after he was arrested in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses, such as operating a platform used for organized crime and refusing to cooperate with French authorities.

Last month, Durov, who is also a co-founder of the company, announced an update to the platform’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which he said would make it clear that IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate the messenger’s rules “can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.”

In a follow-up post on his Du Rove’s Channel on Wednesday, the Telegram CEO noted that the new policy does not constitute a “major shift” in how the platform works and that it had already been sharing with relevant authorities the details of criminals abusing it.

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“Since 2018, Telegram has been able to disclose IP addresses/phone numbers of criminals to authorities, according to our Privacy Policy in most countries,” Durov explained, noting that whenever the platform received a “properly formed legal request via relevant communication lines,” it would verify it and disclose the IP addresses/phone numbers of dangerous criminals.

Durov revealed that in Brazil, for example, Telegram had disclosed data for over 200 legal requests since the start of the year, and nearly 7,000 in India over the same period.

He also noted that there has been an uptick in the number of “valid legal requests” in Europe in recent months, suggesting that this could be attributed to the fact that more EU authorities have started to use the correct communication line for such requests.

Durov explained that the recent update to the platform’s privacy policy was only meant to streamline and unify it, and stressed that Telegram’s core principles have not changed.

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“We’ve always strived to comply with relevant local laws – as long as they didn’t go against our values of freedom and privacy,” he said, adding that Telegram was built to “protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations” and has never allowed criminals to abuse the platform or evade justice.

Durov was detained after landing at a Paris airport in late August and released on bail several days later. He was charged on 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child porn, drug dealing and money laundering. The charges stem from the accusation that Telegram’s lax moderation rules allow for the widespread misuse of the messenger service.

The businessman has vehemently denied the accusations, stressing that Telegram has always strived to work with state regulators to establish “the right balance between privacy and security.” He also noted that the platform takes down “millions of harmful posts and channels every day,” and publishes “daily transparency reports” about actions taken against the dissemination of illegal content.