Pavlo Durov. Photo: mixnews
Recently, Telegram has been in the spotlight due to allegations of possible liability for illegal use of the platform. The founder of Telegram, Pavlo Durov, published an important statement on his Telegram channel, clarifying the situation and assuring the company’s efforts to ensure the security and privacy of users.
Police interviews and charges
Last month, after arriving in Paris, Pavlo Durov was interrogated by the police for four days. He was accused of possible personal liability for the illegal use of Telegram, as the French authorities did not receive responses from the platform to requests. The accusation came as a surprise for several reasons.
First, Telegram has an official representative in the EU who responds to requests from law enforcement agencies. This person’s contact information is publicly available to everyone in the EU. Second, the French authorities had numerous ways to contact Pavel Durov, as he regularly visited the French consulate in Dubai and had previously helped set up a counter-terrorism hotline in France.
Legislative challenges
Pavlo Durov emphasized that the practice of blaming the platform manager for the actions of third parties is inappropriate. If a country is dissatisfied with the performance of an Internet service, the usual course of action is to file a lawsuit against the service itself, rather than prosecuting its manager. He noted that innovation in technology is hampered when the creators of new tools can be held personally liable for the potential misuse of those tools.
A balance between privacy and security
Striking the right balance between privacy and security is a difficult task. A company must align privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, consider technological limitations, and ensure global consistency of its processes. Telegram has always sought dialogue with regulators to achieve this balance.
However, sometimes the company cannot reach an agreement with the regulators in some countries. In such cases, Telegram is ready to leave these markets. This was the case in Russia, where the company refused to hand over “encryption keys” for surveillance, and Telegram was banned in the country. The same thing happened in Iran when the company refused to block the channels of peaceful protesters.
Improvement of processes
Telegram admits that even the question of where to send requests needs improvement. However, accusations that Telegram is an anarchic environment are not true. The company removes millions of harmful posts and channels every day, publishes daily transparency reports, and has direct hotlines with NGOs to handle urgent requests.
With its user base skyrocketing to 950 million, Telegram has faced new challenges that have made it easier to abuse the platform. Pavlo Durov has taken personal responsibility for improving the situation and promises to share details about the progress in the near future.
