Following the recent arrest and release of Telegram’s CEO in France, the platform has been introducing some changes. One of the main allegations against the service was the lack of responsiveness to data requests by authorities. From now on, Telegram will provide phone numbers and IP addresses in response to potential legal requests.
The arrest of Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov stemmed from allegations of his involvement in illegal activities on the service. The French government cited the absence of more efficient moderation systems and a lack of collaboration with the authorities as the primary reasons for the arrest. At the time, Durov said that his arrest was a mistake and an erroneous application of the law.
Telegram will provide phone numbers and IP addresses in legal request cases
Later, Telegram modified its FAQs to reflect the existence of the “Report” option in groups. This change had led many to mistakenly believe that Telegram did not have such an option. It always existed, but now the messaging app wanted to make it clear. Users are able to report individual messages or entire groups. It’s noteworthy that the option to report messages is only available in groups. Individual chats between people are entirely private and encrypted, so the option does not exist.
The new changes to Telegram are more proactive regarding moderation. In addition to providing suspects’ phone numbers and IP addresses to authorities, Telegram will use AI and a human team to remove illegal or problematic content from search results. Telegram’s CEO also asked users to report problematic results as soon as they see them.
Anyway, the changes do not seem to affect the privacy of chats per se. There are no content moderation bots for private chats or groups. Authorities will also not have access to suspects’ chats. “To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user messages to third parties, including governments,” claims Durov.
