Telegram will now share user data with authorities for criminal investigations
Telegram has announced a significant policy change, agreeing to hand over a user’s phone number and IP address if it receives a valid judicial request indicating the person is a suspect in a criminal investigation. This information will only be provided if the request comes from judicial authorities and the individual is suspected of violating Telegram’s Terms of Service. The company will perform a legal analysis to ensure the request is valid and pertains to criminal activities before disclosing any information.
This policy update follows the recent arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov by French authorities, who accused him of enabling illegal activity on the platform. Durov has stated that these updates aim to deter criminals from abusing the app, specifically mentioning the misuse of Telegram’s search function for selling illegal goods.
Previously, Telegram would only hand over user data for terrorism-related cases, but the policy now extends to other types of criminal activities. To maintain transparency, Telegram will disclose in its quarterly transparency reports whether or not it has provided user information to authorities.
Our take: Image credits by NordVPN.
- Instant Messenger
- Freemium • Proprietary
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External links
- 8.3. Law Enforcement AuthoritiesTelegram Privacy Policy • Official source
- Telegram will surrender more of your data to governments, says CEOXDA
- Telegram will now provide IP addresses and phone numbers in response to legal requestsEngadget
- Telegram will now hand over your phone number and IP if you’re a criminal suspect - The VergeThe Verge
Comments
"worldwide government requests from Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft grew ~8x between 2013 and 2022. 2022 seeing an increase from 1.6 million to 2.2 million requests. In total, almost 9 million accounts were requested in 190 countries during that period." - forbes. If I were government, I'd just make up some silly laws and make everyone a "criminal", nobody reads the old laws anyway. And if the plebs ask for transparency, I'll just say "it's an ongoing investigation, blah blah, very sensitive info blah". Viola! now i can spy on my ex-girlfriends. the charge: breaking my heart. If taxation is theft, then unwarrented data requests are a form of rackateering. It's a good thing that all governments only derive their powers from the consent of... you.
Admins should post the piece about Apple removing VPN apps en masse from their Russian app store https://www.techradar.com/pro/vpn/apple-keeps-removing-vpn-apps-in-russia-and-the-toll-is-worse-than-we-thought That shows the true face of Apple probably more than anything else. All they care about is profits, and if threatened with some sanctions they'll do whatever a government tells them to do, even the government as foul and oppressive as russian.
Thanks for sharing, we will try to cover it as well
Honestly, i just don't feel bad for those who continue to use iPhones. You bought into a Phone that is proprietary and sucks for many reasons and now you complain that apple removes VPN.
I completely agree on handing over criminals to justice. I believe this move by Telegram is indeed a good thing, but in all fairness if you want REAL privacy practices you should really use something else than Telegram. something like Signal, Session, or self hosting your own XMPP.
SimpleX over Tor or NYM !
On the one hand yes. But on the other, what if you are an opposition in your country OR an activist? This leaves too much room for abuse and is unacceptable.
End-to-end encryption is the only truly private way to communicate, any other kind of encryption is only incomplete. No one should know what you send, apart from you and the receiver.
Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default that's why you shouldn't use it as a private messenger !