According to Durov, every time they receive a legal request, they reveal IP addresses and phone numbers.
Brazil, India and Europe are the regions where private data is most requested from Telegram.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed this Wednesday, October 2, that his platform has been handing over users’ IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities since 2018, under legal requests. This practice, which has been part of Telegram’s privacy policy in most countries, is activated whenever they receive a legal request.
“Since 2018, Telegram can reveal IP addresses and phone numbers of criminals to authorities, in accordance with our Privacy Policy in most countries,” Durov stated through his channel on Telegram.
As he described, whenever they receive a “properly formulated” legal request through the relevant lines of communicationverify and reveal IP addresses and phone numbers of “dangerous criminals”. “This process had already been implemented long before last week,” Durov said.
Durov detailed that, in Brazil, 75 legal requests have been attended to in the first quarter of 2024, 63 in the second and 65 in the third quarter. In India, Telegram’s largest market, 2,461, 2,151, and 2,380 legal requests have been responded to in the first, second, and third quarters, respectively.
In Europe, there was a increase in the number of valid legal requests in the third quarter. “This increase was due to the fact that more European Union (EU) authorities began to use the correct line of communication for their requests, the one required by the EU DSA law,” Durov explained.
“Information about this point of contact has been publicly available to anyone who has visited the Telegram website or searched on Google ‘EU Telegram address for law enforcement’ since early 2024,” he added.
«The principles of Telegram have not changed»
However, Durov assured that Telegram’s core principles have not changed. “We have always strived to comply with relevant local laws, as long as they do not go against our values of freedom and privacy,” argued the businessman.
“Telegram was created to protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations: we do not allow criminals to abuse our platform or evade justice,” he stressed.
This revelation and changes in Telegram policy occur in the context of a court case that Durov is facing in France, where he is charged with 12 criminal charges, as reported by CriptoNoticias.
Last week, Durov had announced that Telegram would share users’ personal data with governments that requested it, which generated mixed reactions within its user community.
Durov’s statement and Telegram’s data disclosure policy mark a turning point in the discussion about privacy and security in messaging applications, especially in light of the increase in legal requests and the delicate balance between user privacy and security. collaboration with legal authorities.
This article was created using artificial intelligence and edited by a human Editor.