Uncovering Creative Underhanded Tactics: Telegram’s Latest Privacy Policy and Its Compliance with Law Enforcement Data Requests
Artist Huang Ziqiao Involved in Creative Private Room Incident
In the creative private room incident involving artist Huang Ziqiao, a criminal group utilized the Telegram (also known as Telegram, Paper Airplane, Plane) communication platform as a medium for criminal activities. Now, Telegram will more effectively combat criminal activities. The latest privacy policy from Telegram clearly stipulates that if judicial authorities submit a valid order confirming that a user is a suspect in a criminal case involving violations of Telegram’s service terms, Telegram may provide relevant information about the individuals involved in the case.
Telegram’s Latest Privacy Policy: Cooperation with Law Enforcement Agencies
According to the official latest privacy policy of Telegram, Section 3.3.1 states: “Telegram is a cloud service. We store your messages, photos, videos, and files from your cloud chats on our servers, allowing you to access your data from any device at any time without relying on third-party backups. All data is strongly encrypted, and each set of encryption keys is stored in multiple data centers across different jurisdictions. This way, local engineers or physical intruders cannot access user data.”
Additionally, Section 8.3 states: “If Telegram receives a valid order from relevant judicial authorities confirming that you are a suspect in a criminal case involving violations of Telegram’s service terms, we will conduct a legal analysis of the request and may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities. If any data is shared, we will document such instances in our quarterly transparency reports.”
This indicates that if law enforcement agencies legally request data from Telegram, Telegram will provide user data. It should be noted that Section 8.3 refers specifically to “criminal cases,” meaning that data will only be provided in cases involving suspected criminal activities.
During the creative private room incident, Telegram was used as a medium for disseminating pornographic information involving minors. Due to the difficulty in eradicating these criminal activities, the Taiwanese government even discussed the possibility of blocking Telegram at one point. Director Zhang Xiuyuan of the Ministry of Health and Welfare has stated that there are two scenarios under which Telegram might be fully blocked:
- If Telegram is notified but does not remove chat rooms within 24 hours.
- If there is a failure to establish contact with the Telegram platform.
However, these latest policies will more effectively target individual cases, facilitating cooperation between Telegram and regulatory authorities without further harming the rights and interests of general users.
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