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Telegram’s law enforcement compliance, by the numbers

Welcome back, friends. We’ve returned to our keyboards, and the annual transparency report numbers are rolling in.

Telegram's transparency report bot shows a massive spike in the messaging app’s compliance with U.S. law enforcement requests last year. According to 404 Media, from January through September 2024, Telegram fulfilled just 14 requests from U.S. authorities for “IP addresses and/or phone numbers” involving 108 users. However, in the final months of the year, October through December, this number shot up to 900 requests affecting 2,253 users. Those are what scientists call “hockey stick numbers.” This dramatic increase follows a French criminal probe into organized crime on the platform, leading in August to the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.

What you can do

  • Learn what Telegram can and can’t protect. Check out our intern Kevin Pham’s write-up about Telegram’s shortcomings on security and privacy. The long and short of it: You can optionally use it for encrypted 1:1 conversations, but otherwise your conversations are legible to the company. And as the latest news highlights, the service does have access to your phone number. Additionally, like most services on the web, it also has access to your IP address(es), which may be loosely associated with your physical location.
  • Free investigative data! We would not recommend using Telegram for privacy. But it’s been extensively used to investigate extremist groups, organized crime, and more via its public channels and groups (beyond the many benign ones such as Bloomberg’s).
  • Read more about our recommendations for secure communication channels.

Updates from our team

Our team is always ready to assist journalists with digital security concerns. Reach out here, and stay safe and secure out there.

Best,
Martin

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Martin Shelton
Deputy Director of Digital Security
Freedom of the Press Foundation