Telegram Faces Turbulent Month: Regulatory Compliance Woes, Breaches, and Forced Data Handover
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has faced a tough month fielding regulatory scrutiny of Telegram alongside his own arrest. | Credit: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images.
Key Takeaways
- Telegram has faced a turbulent month since the arrest of its chief executive Pavel Durov.
- A leading insurer in India has sued the messenging platform.
- Durov agreed to hand over some user information in a major U-turn for the executive.
Following the arrest of Telegram’s chief executive, Pavel Durov, in late August, it seemed that the cloud-based messaging platform’s situation couldn’t get much worse.
However, it was just the beginning of an incredibly turbulent month for the detained executive and the privacy-focused messenger apps.
Arrest of Pavel Durov and Mounting Criticism
Detained on Aug. 24, Durov was held in custody for 96 hours before being brought before a French court to face a battery of serious allegations.
The chief was indicted with 12 charges, including failure to stop drug trafficking and child pornography on the messaging platform.
Durov was released from detention on a 5-million euro bail, with the condition that he remain in the country and report to a police station twice a week.
Telegram has faced increasing criticism on several fronts, particularly concerning privacy, moderation, and the platform’s role in spreading misinformation.
One of the primary concerns is its use of end-to-end encryption and secret chats, which, while championed for privacy, have been criticized for enabling criminals, terrorists, and other malicious actors to operate without detection.
Star Health Insurance Sues Telegram
On Thursday, Sept. 26, Star Health, a leading insurer in India, filed a lawsuit against Telegram and a hacker after reports that the bad actor had used the application to leak company documents.
The news comes after Reuters reported a malicious actor using chatbots on the messenger app to leak medical reports of policyholders.
Telegram provides a robust API that allows developers to create bots capable of various functionalities, from simple automated replies to complex services like games.
However, on Sept. 6, Durov admitted that criminals had previously been able to infiltrate and utilize the messenger platform for illicit activities.
The chief admitted that the application was “not perfect” saying the dramatic increase in user count to 950 million “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”
Telegram User Data U-Turn
On Monday Sept. 23, Durov made a surprising U-turn when he agreed to hand over some of Telegram’s users’ IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities with search warrants.
Durov has long positioned himself as a staunch advocate of privacy and freedom of speech, refusing to hand over user data to governments, even when pressured by authorities from countries like Russia.
His commitment to privacy was one of Telegram’s key selling points.
Nonetheless, the chief said in a Telegram post that the change to its privacy policy “should discourage criminals.”
“While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” he said.
Telegram’s AI Search Team
Durov also claimed the app had used “a dedicated team of moderators” who leveraged AI to conceal problematic content in search results – in a further attempt to address moderation concerns.
“All the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible. If you still manage to find something unsafe or illegal in Telegram Search, please report it to us via @SearchReport,” Durov shared on his channel.
Durov emphasized that Telegram Search mainly connects people with useful information rather than facilitates illegal trade or promotes unlawful goods.
