Telegram founder commits to Ukraine user privacy

The Russian-born billionaire co-founder of the Telegram messaging app has told Ukrainian users that their data is safe.

In a Telegram post, Pavel Durov, who lives in Dubai, wrote: “I stand up for our users no matter what. Their right to privacy is sacred, now more than ever.”

Telegram was the most popular messaging app in Ukraine, the Observer newspaper reported.

But some experts have raised concerns about the security of user data.

Moxie Marlinspike, who developed the encryption used by rival platforms Signal, which he created, and WhatsApp, tweeted many users thought Telegram was an encrypted app, but it was “by default a cloud database with a plaintext copy of every message everyone had ever sent/received.”

Telegram maintains that everything stored in its cloud is securely encrypted, however, while all of your data is protected, only some of its features use end-to-end encryption.

So-called secret chats, voice calls, and video calls are end-to-end encrypted on Telegram, so they cannot be read by the company.

But in theory, the company could access other encrypted content stored on Telegram’s servers.

And there have been concerns that it could be forced to share user data with Russia.

But on Monday, its founder wrote a post on Telegram that the company said was “a commitment to protect user data at all costs.”

In the post, Durov emphasized his Ukrainian heritage, on his mother’s side, writing that “the tragic conflict is personal both to me and to Telegram.”

“Some people wondered if Telegram is somehow less secure for Ukrainians, because I once lived in Russia,” he wrote.

“Let me tell these people how my career ended in Russia.”

Nine years ago, he had been CEO of VK, a popular social network in Russia and Ukraine, Durov wrote.

“In 2013, the Russian security agency, FSB, demanded that I provide them with the private data of Ukrainian VK users who were protesting against a pro-Russian president,” he said.

“I refused to comply with these demands, because it would have meant a betrayal of our Ukrainian users.

“After that, I was fired from the company I founded and forced to leave Russia.”

As a result, he had lost his company and his home, but he would do it again.

“I smile with pride when I read my VK post from April 2014, which shows the scanned orders of the FSB and my characteristic response to them – a dog in a hoodie,” Durov wrote.

Last year, Dubai-based Telegram hit 1 billion downloads.

Users can configure:

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used the app, which hosts many official Ukrainian government channels.

Telegram was banned in Russia in 2018, after Durov previously refused to hand over user data.

But the ban was lifted in 2021.

And since the invasion of Ukraine, some Russian-language channels have seen their audience increase.

Jordan Wildon, an analyst at Logically who analyzes disinformation, said the Russian-language channels he monitors on Telegram have gained 2.7 million followers since February 24.

“About 800,000 of them were last week. We saw the most significant increase between the 24th and the 28th,” he said.

On March 4, following similar sanctions and measures by big social networks, Telegram blocked Russian state-backed media from its platform in the EU.

Wildon said that after that date, “there was a noticeable drop in total followers. This appears to be due to actions taken by Telegram to restrict state media. However, the total followers on the 183 Russian-language channels we monitored has been slowly rising — back to pre-restriction levels.”

Mr. Durov has previously raised concerns about unverified information on the platform.

He had reportedly considered partially or completely disconnecting channels in countries involved in the conflict for the duration of hostilities, saying he did not want “Telegram to be used as a tool that exacerbates conflicts and incites ethnic hatred”.

But after appeals from users who said they trusted the app, he relented, warning: “Double check and don’t take the data being posted on Telegram channels during this difficult period at faith.”