Technology

Telegram would be sharing user data with the German authorities

If you are worried about your privacy on the Internet, you will be surprised by what Telegram tells us… They have leaked data to the German authorities!

Being one of the most popular instant messaging services on the planet, in the shadow of WhatsApp, the truth is that the leaders of Telegram always promised to protect the security and privacy of its users to the maximum in each public intervention, starting by providing end-to-end encryption from the beginning for both messaging and video calls or file sharing.

In fact, Pavel Durov’s company had even maintained out of the reach of governments and political and/or police authorities all private data of its more than 500 million users, although it seems that things could be changing. According to the latest information released by Der Spiegel in Germany. Although they always promised the protection of their users, it seems that something in Telegram is changing. And it is that the colleagues of xda-developers echoed in the last hours that Telegram reportedly transferred personal information to the German Federal Criminal Police Office although according to the sources only accounts and data of suspects would be involved in crimes of terrorism or child abuse among others considered extremely serious.

So far it is unknown how they got it, but the German Federal Criminal Police Office gained access to the private data of some Telegram users (only criminals and dangerous criminals, in theory) for the first time in history.

The latest (and worrying) idea of ​​the European Commission proposes the mass scanning of your WhatsApp chats from what we know to date, this should be the first time that Telegram delivers information of one of its millions of users to authorities in any country, something that according to the sources should have been facilitated precisely by the seriousness of the crimes mentioned.

It would not be for lack of requests, because on numerous occasions we have seen Pavel Durov and his people protecting their user base at all costs always putting your privacy first and ignoring requests from any authority or government even if they were cases related to delinquency. In fact, it is that until now we had seen Telegram move around the world to avoid more restrictive regulations in certain countries, lately registering its headquarters in Dubai, although always prepared and alert to move as soon as the laws prevent them from maintaining their strategies.

Also, their servers are spread all over the world so it is always difficult to try to “force” them to deliver private information. In any case, it is unknown how the German police would have gained access to this data because although it is speculated that if several authorities of a country where data centers are located request information, Telegram should comply to avoid problems, it is not known if this has been the case.

For now, there are no official details neither from the Central European country nor from Telegramalthough we hope that they shed a little light on us since the case is gaining a lot of media coverage.