Pavel Durov lends clarity to new rules on Telegram

The recently announced changes to Telegram's privacy policy are not large-scale; the messenger's management could have disclosed IP addresses and phone numbers of criminals to the authorities upon official request, the messenger's founder Pavel Durov reported on his channel.

"My previous post may have seemed like an announcement of major changes to Telegram. But in reality, not much has changed," he wrote, News.Az reports citing Interfax.

According to him, the new measures related to data disclosure are largely intended to streamline and unify privacy policies across countries.

"Since 2018, Telegram has had the ability to disclose IP addresses and phone numbers of criminals to authorities in accordance with our privacy policy in most countries," he said.

"When we receive a properly executed legal request through the appropriate communication lines, we check it and disclose the IP addresses or phone numbers of dangerous criminals. This process began long before last week," Durov emphasized.

According to him, Telegram's core principles have remained unchanged.

Durov said on September 23 that Telegram's management, under the new rules, can disclose IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate the messenger's rules when receiving legal requests from authorities.

"We have made it clear that IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules may be disclosed to the relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests," he wrote.

In addition, the founder of the messenger said that the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will now be uniform for all users, regardless of their geographic location. Durov emphasized that such updates are being introduced in order to "further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search."

At the end of August, the Telegram founder was charged in France with failure to counteract the distribution of criminal content via the messenger.

Durov was later released from custody on bail of 5 million euros, subject to strict judicial supervision, an obligation to report to the police station twice a week. He is prohibited from leaving French territory.

News.Az