Ministry confirms for the first time: Telegram passes user data to German security authorities

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For the first time, the Federal Ministry of the Interior ( BMI ) has confirmed that the messaging service Telegram has transmitted user data to German investigative authorities. According to research by NDR, this happened in 25 cases. In almost 400 cases, content was deleted.

Until now, Telegram had publicly advertised that it would not pass on "a single byte" of user data to governments or investigative authorities. Telegram is therefore used by criminals, terror suspects and opposition members around the world alike - in the confidence that their data is safe there. German authorities have been monitoring hate comments on the platform for some time, but also fantasies of violence and alleged plans for terrorist attacks on politicians.

The BMI has now confirmed for the first time that Telegram has passed on user australia gambling data data to the Federal Criminal Police Office ( BKA ). The ministry explained to the research format STRG_F ( NDR /funk) that there were a few "outstanding individual cases" in which Telegram had passed on inventory data, such as users' IP addresses. Research by STRG_F has shown that the Federal Criminal Police Office has sent 202 inventory data requests to Telegram. The messenger service answered 64 of these - and in 25 cases passed on user data to the BKA. This apparently happened in cases of child abuse and Islamist terrorism. In addition, Telegram has complied with several hundred requests for deletion.

For over a year, the Dubai- based company had not responded to the federal government's attempts to contact it. At the beginning of 2021, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser threatened to approach Google and Apple to urge them to remove Telegram from the app stores. Without the app stores, Telegram's business basis would be destroyed. In February, a video call took place for the first time between high-ranking representatives of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Telegram. Company founder and sole owner Pavel Durov was also said to have been there, those involved told STRG_F. Since then, there has been a communication channel between the company and the federal government. User data has now also been transmitted via this channel.