Pavel Durov wrote a post today about changing Telegram's privacy policy. Let's analyze the main theses:
- Since 2018, Telegram has begun transmitting IP addresses and phone numbers of criminals to the authorities within the framework of Telegram's privacy policy according to well-written legal requests;
- In Europe, Telegram received a significant number of requests in the third quarter, which is due to the fact that EU authorities began to use the contact center established by law correctly. Information about this center has been available on the Telegram website since the beginning of 2024.
Monitoring your country's requests to the Telegram contact center.
Everyone can check the number of requests!
With the help of the @transparency bot, each Telegram user can view the number of requests for data in their country. For example, in Brazil, Telegram processed 75 requests in the first quarter of 2024, 63 in the second quarter, and 65 in the third. In India, 2,461 requests were satisfied in the first quarter, 2,151 in the second and 2,380 in the third. And in Russia, for a moment, there are 0 requests.
To avoid confusion, Telegram has recently simplified and unified the privacy policy for all countries, but the basic principles remain the same – this suggests that, regardless of the laws of a particular country, Telegram will not contradict its own values - freedom and protection of personal data of each user, provided that the local law does not go against these principles.
Summing up, we can say that the Telegram messenger has been and remains a platform for protecting activists and ordinary people from corrupt authorities and companies, but at the same time it will not allow criminals to use the platform to hide their "deeds".
