Telegrams Change in Policy Sparks Privacy Worries

The Telegram messaging app recently made a significant update to its privacy policy, which has raised privacy concerns among its users.
Telegram will start sharing user data with relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.
The messaging app will share the IP addresses and phone numbers of users who violate the app’s rules, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov
announced
on Sept. 23.


Durov announcement. Source:
Cointelegraph
The policy update raises concerns for privacy-preserving technologies, considering that it contradicts Telegram’s foundational principles, according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
Lian told Cointelegraph:
The new policy represents a significant change in Telegram’s user guidelines following concerns raised about the potential misuse of the platform for illegal activities. The policy shift occurred on Aug. 24, a month after
Durov was arrested
in France.
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Telegram policy update should discourage criminal activity: Durov
While Telegram’s new policy update could raise privacy concerns for the messenger app’s users, it mainly aims to curb criminal activity on the platform.
As part of Durov’s efforts to make Telegram safer, the app implemented artificial intelligence algorithms and human moderators to remove all the “problematic content” from Telegram Search.
The new policy shift aims to make Telegram Search safer for users and deter criminal activity, wrote Durov:


Most popular messenger apps. Source: Statista
Telegram is the world’s fourth most popular online messenger app, with over 900 million monthly active users as of April 2024, according to
Statista
.
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Meta and WhatsApp are already sharing user data with authorities
While Telegram’s policy shift may come as a surprise, it is not unprecedented among the world’s top online messaging apps.
WhatsApp, currently the largest messenger app by users, is widely known for sharing user data with law enforcement,
according
to the application’s privacy policy, which states:
These policies are similar to Meta’s Messenger, which also complies with requests from authorities.


Meta user data requests from authorities. Source: Meta
Since July 2013, Meta has complied with over 301,000 requests from authorities, providing user data for over 77% of the total 528,000 legal requests received,
according
to Meta’s policy page.
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