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Telegram’s surge in data-request compliance

Following last year’s arrest by French authorities of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, the company is apparently much more cooperative about compliance with legal requests for user data. 

According to Telegram’s transparency report bot, most easily accessible in this GitHub entry and website compiled by Human Rights Watch technologist Etienne "Tek" Maynier, compliance appears to be skyrocketing. During the first quarter of 2025, the company provided authorities with data on 22,777 users. During the same period last year, the company produced data for only 5,826 users. In India alone, Telegram produced data in over 9,000 requests for nearly 10,000 users. The messaging app also shared data on 1,664 U.S. users, responsive to 576 requests. Read more.

What you can do

  • Learn about Telegram’s limitations. The important thing to note here is that the main way people use Telegram is in public-facing channels and groups. You can optionally use it for encrypted one-on-one conversations, but otherwise by default your conversations are legible to the company. Our former intern Kevin Pham wrote all about Telegram’s security and privacy flaws. Give it a read. 
  • Look for safer alternatives. Check out our guides on secure communication channels.

Updates from our team

Reminder: We’re interested in learning more about journalists’ use of AI tools in your work. Our hope is to research the security and privacy properties of the most popular tools, how to use them as safely as possible, and to identify potential settings and alternatives that may address your concerns. We put together a short questionnaire on this and would appreciate your help! Please add your thoughts here: https://forms.gle/8xcMh1d2HnVbkE6SA

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