Throughout the entire history of the Telegram messenger, not a single byte of users’ personal messages has been disclosed. This was stated by the founder of the service, Pavel Durov.
Image source: Dima Solomin on Unsplash
He also added that the platform complies with current EU legislation and, if there is a valid court order, only discloses IP addresses and phone numbers of suspects. “Telegram would rather leave the market than undermine encryption with backdoors and violate basic human rights,” Durov added.
Let us recall that Pavel Durov was detained at Le Bourget Airport in France on August 24, 2024. Local authorities accused him of complicity in the management of an online platform for conducting illegal transactions, refusing to provide information and documents upon request from authorized bodies, money laundering, etc. A few days later, Durov was released under judicial supervision and ordered to post bail in the amount of €5 million.
In the fall of 2024, it became known that Telegram had begun to disclose IP addresses and phone numbers of users significantly more often at the request of French law enforcement. In the first quarter, this concerned only 17 users, while in the third quarter, the data of 632 users was disclosed. In February of this year, a representative of the French prosecutor’s office said that Durov’s case would not reach court for at least a year.