The management of the Telegram messenger, including founder Pavel Durov, has repeatedly insisted that the privacy of any user’s correspondence is the highest priority. The project’s FAQ section mentions that Telegram shared 0 bytes of user data with third parties, including national governments.
However, popular German publication Der Spiegel claims that this is not the case. German Federal Criminal Police Office has reportedly fulfilled a number of data requests from Telegram. In particular, they’ve given the data of users suspected of child abuse and terrorism.
On the other hand, it is noted that it was difficult for German investigators to obtain data from Telegram on other criminal offenses.
It should be noted that in 2018, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, announced a revision of the privacy policy, which from that moment allows the disclosure of IP addresses and phone numbers by court order.
However, “to date, this has not yet happened,” states the relevant section. Durov and the Telegram communications department left unanswered a request from Der Spiegel journalists for a fresh find.
