{"id":447664,"date":"2022-06-07T08:39:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T06:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=447664"},"modified":"2022-06-07T08:42:30","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T06:42:30","slug":"telegram-discloses-user-data-to-police-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/447664-telegram-discloses-user-data-to-police-report.html","title":{"rendered":"Telegram discloses user data to police \u2014\u00a0Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telegram has released user data to Germany\u2019s Bundeskriminalamt (federal criminal police office), Der Spiegel reports<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although it reportedly had good reason for the disclosures, it contradicts information published on Telegram\u2019s website assuring user privacy.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Telegram released data from suspects in child abuse and terrorism cases.<\/p>\n

Under a section titled \u201cDo you process data requests?\u201d the messaging service\u2019s FAQ states that several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force it to give up any data.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments,\u201d Telegram\u2019s FAQ said<\/a><\/strong> as of 7 June 2022.<\/p>\n

Telegram updated its privacy policy<\/a><\/strong> in 2018, allowing it to disclose limited information at its discretion in cases involving terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Telegram receives a court order that confirms you\u2019re a terror suspect, we may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, this has never happened. When it does, we will include it in a semiannual transparency report published at: https:\/\/t.me\/transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Telegram\u2019s transparency reports channel contains no updates since it was created on 13 August 2018.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Telegram launched the ability to import your chat history from WhatsApp in 2021.<\/p><\/div>\n

While Telegram has grown in popularity as an alternative to the Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the services have significant differences.<\/p>\n

Whereas messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal only offer end-to-end encrypted chats, Telegram defaults to \u201ccloud chats\u201d.<\/p>\n

With WhatsApp and Signal, messages are held on servers in encrypted format only for as long as needed to guarantee that they have been delivered.<\/p>\n

It is the user\u2019s responsibility to keep backups, although WhatsApp offers integration with iCloud and Google Drive for cloud-based backups. These also recently received encryption.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Telegram\u2019s cloud chats are stored on the company\u2019s servers, potentially giving it access to users\u2019 messages.<\/p>\n

This has the benefit of giving you access to your whole message history regardless of where you sign into Telegram.<\/p>\n

However, it is a potential privacy and security concern.<\/p>\n

Telegram assures that cloud chat messages are stored in encrypted format, with data distributed across multiple data centres worldwide and controlled by different legal entities spread across several jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect,\u201d Telegram\u2019s FAQ states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to this structure, we can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people\u2019s privacy and freedom of expression,\u201d says Telegram.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelegram can be forced to give up data only if an issue is grave and universal enough to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

It should be noted that Telegram does offer end-to-end encryption in \u201csecret chats\u201d, but these are not the default.<\/p>\n

Last year, the University of London and ETH Zurich researchers highlighted significant problems with the security of Telegram\u2019s encryption system<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although Telegram fixed the four specific security flaws the researchers identified, they also highlighted underlying problems with Telegram\u2019s general approach to encryption.<\/p>\n

MyBroadband contacted Telegram for comment, but it did not provide feedback by publication time.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: WhatsApp versus Telegram<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the report, Telegram had good reason to disclose the data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":447670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6298,36075,30082,23753,2594],"class_list":["post-447664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-encryption","tag-end-to-end-encryption","tag-signal","tag-telegram","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447680,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447664\/revisions\/447680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}