Telegram Gives Police More Access to Criminal Data – POLITICO

The changes come a month after Durov was arrested in Paris on allegations that his platform was complicit in illegal activity on the app and refused to cooperate with authorities. Durov is currently out on bail and cannot leave France.

Durov had previously received strong support from right-wing free speech advocates, including X owner Elon Musk, for his longstanding refusal to give governments access to his platform’s data. The promise of data confidentiality has attracted everyone from organized crime cartels to political dissident groups in repressive regimes to the Russian and Ukrainian militaries to use Telegram.

The Russian-born tech entrepreneur said on Telegram that the platform’s search function was being “abused” to sell illegal goods, adding that a team of moderators had made the feature “much safer” in recent weeks.

Telegram will also publish more frequent transparency reports, detailing how often it has cooperated with authorities. The new privacy policy says this will happen quarterly instead of every six months.