PARIS: Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.
The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.
That was up from just four in the first quarter and six in the second.
Some 2,072 users were affected by French requests for user data — again massively weighted toward the second half of 2024, with more than half in the fourth quarter alone.
Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram.
He and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities’ requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.
Durov, who holds Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports, has been barred from leaving French soil since he was charged.
That has not stopped Telegram from issuing updates to its moderation rules supposed to boost cooperation with investigators.
A source familiar with Durov’s case told AFP in December that the platform was responding more frequently to requests from the judicial system from both France and other countries.
