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.
This is really simple. Use Signal or WIRE. Proton or maybe Tutanota for email.
Avoid garbage like Telegram and FB Messenger. Discord as well.
Wire isn't that great. Definitely avoid email as it is riddled with problems that aren't easily fixable despite what the email companies tell you.
Simplex Chat, Signal or possibly Matrix
I use Wire. Its the best option right now. Better than SimpleX, Signal, and Matrix for many reasons
It really isn't though
It is less secure, less private and less user friendly and is run by a company who I question.
Wire is better than those imho
Matrix is still good too, right?
Nah, it senda tons of unencrypted data, and you literally can't turn it off
That's the privacy starter pack.
Mid level is Linux, DeGoogled pbone, and openwrt on the router
Make your fed work for you! You pay him a healthy wage for it 🐸
It’s hardly simple: Why not Signal?
Articles like this go very far toward chasing people away from things that work and toward things that are dangerous.
Like Telegram.
Oh boy, I never read the entire thing, but they can decrypt quantum encrypted messages, if that's true ( and I wish cryptography experts could debunk this ), if that's true, then the NSA has went too far with this open source honeypot.. perfection!
It is way better than Telegram