The messaging app Telegram has agreed to disclose users’ phone numbers and IP addresses to law enforcement agencies in response to “valid legal requests.”
He said, “While 99.999 percent of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001 percent involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk.”
It is not clear if Durov made the concessions as a result of pressure from the French authorities, who detained him when he arrived at Le Bourget airport near Paris from Dubai on Aug. 26.
But Sadry Porlon, another Paris-based lawyer who specializes in information technology law, disagreed.
Porlon said: “Either this refusal to communicate [by Telegram] is not real and Mr. Durov and his Telegram teams responded, or did not know that this information was requested of them, or it is the other way round, and the decision will not be long in coming. But in no case will it take 10 years to be decided.”
Whether Telegram changing its terms of service is the first step toward charges being dropped against Durov remains to be seen.
Durov said, “No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.”
But on Monday, in his message on his Telegram channel, his tone was markedly less confrontational and more conciliatory.
‘Problematic Content’
Durov then went on to say: “Over the last few weeks, a dedicated team of moderators, leveraging AI, has made Telegram Search much safer. All the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible.”He then said users who “still manage to find something unsafe or illegal in Telegram Search” should report it to the app.
Durov then wrote, “To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our terms of service and privacy policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world.”
“We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests,” he added.
Durov concluded by saying: “Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods. We won’t let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.”
While Telegram’s agreement to hand over IP addresses and phone numbers of drug dealers and those trading illegal items like child abuse images may not be controversial, it remains to be seen whether the “valid legal requests” include investigations into controversial comments.
In Britain, several people were prosecuted for comments made on Facebook and X during the riots which occurred in the wake of the murder of three children in Southport, near Liverpool, in July.
While those individuals were clearly identifiable, there have been concerns by free speech campaigners about Big Tech companies collaborating with police.
Telegram is an app that allows for one-on-one conversations, group chats, and “channels” that can involve hundreds of people.
Critics have accused Telegram of spreading misinformation, partly because its channels can have up to 200,000 members, compared to a limit of 1,024 in Meta-owned WhatsApp.
In 2021, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, now UK prime minister, described Telegram as the “app of choice for extremists.”
