Telegram on privacy: How well protected are your messages?
Anti-government protesters in Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran, Extinction Rebellion activists in Britain, Islamic State terrorists… just about any organised group with something to fear from state officials uses Telegram to communicate.
The messenger app has long prided itself on refusing to hand over data to officials.
“That’s why Telegram is banned by authoritarian governments such as Russia and Iran.” So said Telegram boss Pavel Durov, who himself is now in custody of French police in connection to an investigation of the platform’s possible breach of EU laws.
Durov, long in exile from Russia after refusing to hand over user data to state officials, was taken into police custody at Le Bourget airport earlier in August.
Police are holding Durov as part of a preliminary inquest into Telegram’s lack of moderation and cooperation with law enforcement regarding drug trafficking, fraud and child abuse offences on the social media platform, according to local media.
A law-breaking messenger?
Telegram has responded by saying it complies with EU laws and had not violated any regulations.
In a post on X, the online messaging service said it “abides by EU laws” like the Digital Services Act (DSA) which aims to ensure that platforms remove illegal content from their pages quickly.
The company said its moderation was “within industry standards” and was “constantly improving”.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” Telegram said. “Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe.”
Telegram has long faced accusations of not taking a strong enough stance against hate speech and other illegal activities.
Encrypted private groups on Telegram allow users to exchange messages without police being able to easily monitor them. A 2019 investigation by the BBC found images of child sexual abuse and stolen credit card data were being circulated in such groups on Telegram, as well as other platforms.
But while Telegram has a reputation for protecting protesters – even when they could be breaking local laws – does the company’s increased attention from European authorities make it a risky choice for users?
Users appreciate the message of privacy, the smooth interface and the public ‘channels’ where like-minded people can discuss shared interests and causes.
A black box for data privacy
And yet when it comes to protecting users, some experts appear more concerned with Telegram’s approach to privacy.
Even before you send your message, the app sends every snippet and draft of text you type to Telegram servers in real time – whether or not you send it.
This is just one of the reasons why some security experts say Telegram is a disaster in terms of user privacy. The server even has access to a complete copy of all chats, according to researchers at German industry specialist website Heise Security.
Your conversations should be stored exclusively on your own mobile device. The problem: what Telegram does with your data, other than sending it to another mobile device, remains unknown.
Even WhatsApp offers more privacy assurances.
There are so-called ‘secret chats’ as a Telegram function, which are secured to prevent third parties from reading them. On its website, Telegram says if privacy security is an issue for you, you should use these secret chats with a self-destruct timer.
But these features are deactivated by default and so well hidden that most Telegram users aren’t aware of them. Secret chats are also more limited in functionality and won’t work on more than one device you own.
Encryption on Signal and WhatsApp
Here too, other messengers are better equipped – Signal, for example, or WhatsApp, which uses the encryption technology of Signal. There are no central chat databases for these two messengers.
The messages are encrypted so that only the real recipient can open and read them – in other words, end-to-end encryption. The chats are also stored only on the owner’s mobile device – never on remote servers that could theoretically be accessed by a court order.
But beyond that, we don’t know much about the workings of the Facebook-owned app’s inner workings, and it’s entirely possible that backdoors have been built into WhatsApp’s closed-source software.
Moreover, WhatsApp is gradually being integrated further into the Facebook group, which earns billions by processing its users’ data to deliver targeted ads.
As a secure messenger alternative with good encryption, the experts recommend Signal, which is without exception open-source software. This means that anyone with the know-how can check what is happening behind the scenes at any time.
In addition, the Signal infrastructure is operated by a non-profit foundation that is committed to data protection and is financed entirely by donations.
There is therefore no financial interest in the users’ data. Telegram, on the other hand, is an opaque company construct, the motives for which are virtually unknown.
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