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Surge in Telegram user data passed to French authorities

Surge in Telegram user data passed to French authorities
World
2 min read
Messaging service Telegram reportedly handed over significantly more user data to French authorities in the second half of 2024.
The Telegram messaging app is seen on an iPhone in this illustration taken on 25 August, 2024 in Warsaw, Poland. Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris on charges of failing to take action against the harmful use of Telegram. [Getty]

Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov's arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.

The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.

That was up from just four in the first quarter and six in the second.

Some 2,072 users were affected by French requests for user data -- again massively weighted towards the second half of 2024, with more than half in the fourth quarter alone.

Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram.

He and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities' requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.

Durov, who holds Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports, has been barred from leaving French soil since he was charged.

That has not stopped Telegram from issuing updates to its moderation rules supposed to boost cooperation with investigators.

A source familiar with Durov's case told news agency AFP in December that the platform was responding more frequently to requests from the judicial system from both France and other countries.