Last month, the French Senate almost approved a bill that would have required messengers to implement a police “backdoor” to end-to-end encrypted messages. The controversial decision was ultimately rejected by the National Assembly, a temporary victory for digital privacy advocates in France. However, three days ago, the Paris police prefect again supported the initiative, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said.
Durov congratulated the deputies on rejecting “a law that would make France the first country in the world to deprive its citizens of their right to privacy.” He warned that any built-in “backdoors” for law enforcement “could be used by other parties – from foreign agents to hackers – and compromise the private messages of all law-abiding citizens.”
While supporters of the bill have argued that it will help combat drug trafficking, Durov doubts its effectiveness. "Even if the main encrypted platforms were weakened, criminals would simply switch to dozens of lesser-known applications and protect their communications with VPNs," he explained.
Telegram, which is used by more than 700 million people worldwide, has had a strict no-backdoor policy for 12 years, Durov said. "We would rather exit the market than betray encryption and violate basic human rights," Durov said, comparing Telegram's approach to competitors who "trade privacy for market share."
Under the EU Digital Services Act, he said, Telegram was complying with legitimate court orders, revealing only the IP addresses and phone numbers of suspects – but not the content of their messages. “We have never transmitted a single byte of private messages,” Durov said.
Despite the recent defeat by lawmakers in France, Durov warned that the fight for encryption is not over. In March, the European Commission proposed a similar initiative to introduce "backdoors" in messengers across the European Union.
Despite Durov positioning Telegram as an end-to-end encrypted messenger, he has repeatedly come under criticism for exaggerating its security. In particular, in 2021, the founder of the Signal messenger Moxie Marlinspike stated that even Facebook Messenger has higher privacy protection than Telegram. Since end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is activated in Telegram only in "secret chats", but is not activated by default for all correspondence.