Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says “not much has changed” in the app’s privacy policy since his arrest

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said his messaging app has been turning over user data to authorities to crack down on criminal activity for years, and that “little has changed” in the app’s privacy policy since his arrest.

The tech mogul, who faces charges in France of facilitating child pornography and other crimes related to his lax content moderation policy, posted on his personal Telegram channel on Wednesday clarifying an earlier message that the company was changing its terms of service.

“My previous post may have seemed like an announcement of a major change in how Telegram works. But in reality, not much has changed,” Durov said in his latest statement.

Durov wrote that Telegram has been providing IP addresses and phone numbers of alleged criminals to government authorities since 2018.

“Whenever we received a well-worded legal request through the appropriate communication lines, we verified it and disclosed the IP addresses/phone numbers of dangerous criminals,” Durov wrote in his latest message.

“This process was taking place well before last week.”

This year alone, Durov said, Telegram has complied with more than 200 legal requests from authorities in Brazil and nearly 7,000 in India.

He said Telegram’s core principles have not changed and that the company has always sought to comply with local laws “unless they conflict with our values ​​of freedom and privacy.”

“Telegram was created to protect activists and ordinary people from corrupt governments and corporations – we do not allow criminals to abuse our platform or avoid justice,” Durov wrote.

Durov defended himself against accusations from the French government that he allowed criminal activity to run unfettered on his app.

In his first public comments last month since he was charged in late August, Durov said he was personally targeted by the French government.

“Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to accuse the CEO of crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a flawed approach,” Durov wrote in a Telegram post on September 5.

“Construction technology is difficult enough as it is. No innovator will ever create new tools if he or she knows that he or she can be held personally liable for any potential misuse of those tools.

Insisting that Telegram is not “some kind of anarchic paradise,” Durov said the growing number of Telegram users “has caused growing problems that have made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”

“It was therefore my personal goal to ensure significant improvement in this regard. We have already started this process internally and I will share more details on our progress with you soon,” he said.

French allegations against Durov include that Telegram is used to transmit child sexual abuse and drug trafficking material, and that the platform refuses to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.

French investigators detained Durov at Le Bourget airport near Paris in late August and questioned him for four days as part of a wide-ranging investigation launched earlier this year.

Released on bail, Durov must report to the police station twice a week.

The Russian-born tycoon has accumulated multiple citizenships, including French.

With postal wires