Messaging app Telegram has adjusted its policies to allow it to share more data with government authorities – a major shift for the platform, which has faced years of criticism for allowingmaterial about drug trafficking, cybercrime and sexual abuse of children to spread on its channels.
Telegram Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov said on Monday that the platform has changed its privacy policy to reflect that it can disclose the IP addresses and phone numbers of criminal suspects when it receives a warrant from the relevant judicial authorities. Until now, Telegram’s policy has only been to disclose information about suspected terrorists under a court order.
“We have made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules may be disclosed to authorities in response to valid legal requests,” Durov wrote in a message on his Telegram channel.
The changes come a month after Durov was arrested in Paris on charges that his platform was complicit in illegal activity on the app and that it refused to cooperate with authorities. Durov is currently out of custody on bail and cannot leave France.
The app owner has previously received strong support from right-wing free speech advocates, including X owner Elon Musk, for its long-standing refusal to give governments access to its platform’s data. The promise of confidentiality has attracted everything from organized crime cartels to political dissident groups in repressive regimes and the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
A Russian-born tech entrepreneur said on Telegram that the platform’s search function was “misused” to sell illegal goods. He added that a team of moderators had made the feature “much safer” in recent weeks.
Telegram will also publish transparency reports more frequently, sharing data on how often it has cooperated with authorities. The new privacy policy says this will happen quarterly instead of every six months, Politico reports.
