Recently, Telegram experienced a significant turning point in its history following the arrest of its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, by French authorities. This event marked a major shift for a platform that was once renowned for providing the highest levels of security and privacy in online messaging applications.
Before this incident, Telegram was widely regarded as the most secure messaging app by users around the globe. However, under increasing pressure from governments, Durov pledged to improve content moderation mechanisms as part of a resolution with the French government. These changes were implemented quickly, and Telegram now has the capability to review private conversations if requested by governmental authorities.
As a result, your conversations on Telegram may no longer be as private and secure as they once were. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to determine whether your country’s government is collaborating with Telegram to monitor accounts. Although it's difficult to confirm if your personal account is being surveilled, these methods can help you assess the level of risk and the likelihood of your account being watched.
How to Determine if Your Government is Monitoring Your Telegram Account
Below, we explain how to check for signs of collaboration between Telegram and your country's authorities, allowing you to take appropriate measures to protect your privacy.
Telegram updated its privacy policies, introducing a new bot that allows users to see if their government has requested information about them or other users. This bot doesn’t tell you if the government is spying on you directly, but it does provide insight into how secure Telegram is in your country.
What does the Transparency Reports bot reveal?
The bot, named Transparency Reports, provides detailed information on two key aspects:
- Number of official requests made by your government to Telegram for personal user data, such as phone numbers or IP addresses.
- Number of affected users, meaning the instances where Telegram responded to these requests by providing the requested information.
How to use the bot to check if your government is spying on your Telegram activity:
If you want to see whether your government has requested information about you or other users, follow these steps:
- Open the Telegram app.
- Search for the Transparency Reports، bot, either using a direct link t.me/transparency or by typing the bot's name in Telegram’s search bar.
- Once you open the bot, click the "Start" button.
- Then select "Get report to XXXX" (your country’s name will replace XXXX).
Understanding the report:
After completing these steps, you will receive a report showing how many requests your government has made to Telegram for user data and how many users were affected. If the report shows "0", it means your government has not made any requests, and therefore, there is no indication of surveillance on your Telegram activity.
