Messaging app Telegram will provide users' IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities if they have search warrants or other valid legal requests, the BBC reported, as quoted by News.bg.
In a post on his Telegram channel, the app's CEO Pavel Durov wrote that the change in terms of service and privacy policy "should deter criminals".
"While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% of them involved in illegal activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our nearly one billion users at risk," he pointed out.
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We remind you that Durov was detained in France, and a few days later he was accused of enabling criminal activity on the platform. The charges against him include complicity in the distribution of images of child abuse and drug trafficking. He is also accused of failing to comply with the requirements of law enforcement authorities.
Durov denied the allegations and said that blaming him for crimes committed by third parties on the platform was both "surprising" and "wrong.
Critics note that Telegram has become a hotbed of misinformation, child pornography and terrorist content, in part because of a feature that allows groups to have up to 200,000 members. WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, limits the size of groups to 1000 people.
Telegram was investigated last month for hosting far-right channels that contributed to violence in English cities. Ukraine recently banned the use of government devices in an attempt to minimize threats from Russia.
The arrest of the 39-year-old CEO has sparked debate about the future of free speech protections on the Internet.
According to John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, after the detention of Pavel Durov, many people began to question whether Telegram was actually a safe place for political dissidents. This is because Telegram has not made it clear how it will proceed with the authorities in countries with repressive regimes such as Russia and Belarus — countries where many people use the app for the security it provides to share their political views.
"Many are now looking at Telegram's statement with one main question: Does this mean the platform will begin cooperating with authorities in repressive regimes?" explained Scott-Railton.
Cybersecurity experts note that while Telegram has removed some groups in the past, it has a much weaker system for moderating extremist and illegal content than competing social networks and messaging apps.
Prior to the recent expansion of its policy, Telegram only provided information about suspected terrorists. On Monday, Durov said the app now uses a "special team of moderators" who use artificial intelligence to hide problematic content in search results.
Still, experts say, making this type of material harder to find probably won't be enough to meet the requirements of French or European law.