New data released by messaging app Telegram reveals a sharp rise in the number of data requests the company has fulfilled over the past year for users' data requested by law enforcement agencies.
The increase in requests from users comes months after French authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August. That's partly because the company has long refused to provide user data in response to child exploitation investigations. Immediately after Durov's arrest, Telegram appears to have relaxed its policies on how it handles abuse reports.
Telegram's latest transparency data (which can only be requested through your Telegram account and is limited to the requesting user's region) shows that the messaging app will transfer phone numbers and IP addresses to the US 900 times in 2024. Turned over to authorities and shown to have affected 2,253 Telegram users.
This is a sharp increase in the number of data requests processed compared to most of 2024, according to a global map of crowdsourced requests created by Meduza. At this time, Telegram responded to 14 user data requests for a total of 108 users. (The latest Telegram transparency data can be found here.)
Telegram's 2024 transparency statistics also show that the messaging app provided phone numbers and IP addresses to Indian authorities on 14,641 occasions, impacting 23,535 users. For the UK, Telegram said it provided phone numbers and IP addresses to UK authorities a total of 142 times, affecting 293 users, an increase from single digits in the previous reporting period. did.
TechCrunch's Carly Page in the UK and Jagmeet Singh in India contributed to this report.
(via 404 media)