Key points:
Telegram does not offer a strong feature of privacy like a signal, but it has some features that can appeal to some people.
Telegram is a cloud -based messaging service, and data is stored that needs to be done. Telegram also writes that it collects and stores some of your metadata, such as IP addresses. The company changed its privacy policy in 2024 to say that if the request was made, it would share some of your data with law enforcement agencies.
“We have made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of our rules violators can be shown in response to the correct legal requests to the relevant authorities,” Poel Dorov posted in September.
According to the Telegram’s own app transparency report, with this change, Telegram met 900 applications for information from US authorities in 2024, which affected 2,253 people.
If the telegram was probably not about handing over your data to law enforcement agencies, the company has faced data violations in the past years, which has put this information into the hands of others. In 2020, for example, about 42 million Iranian telegram users leaked their data online. In 2019, Chinese agencies exploited a bug in Telegram to expose the identity of protesters in Hong Kong.
If you are still interested in telegram, an important difference between other messaging apps such as this and signal is that it can work as a messaging board for large groups like a dyspore. It offers public channels that spread news about video games, news, sports and more. For example, in the @International Channel, you can find trailers and posters for new films and television shows.
However, such public channels are not secretly secret from the end. Telegram writes that everything posted in public channels and public groups has been encrypted in transit in its servers and storage, but they are accessible to everyone on the government channels, no key to any encryption. So if you are a channel owner or administrator, your posts in this channel are like public records.
Telegram secret chats offer encryption from the end to the end, but there is a warning. Those chats are limited to original devices, known as your phone.
Telegram writes, “So you can always be sure that they are safe as long as your phone is stored in your pocket.”
However, that also means that you can’t use secret chats on Telegram’s desktop or browser version. Therefore, these chats can be intervened and read by someone who is not the required recipient.
Telegram offers to delete the message automatically, but your smallest interval is a day, unlike the signal where you can set up messages after minutes or even seconds. Telegram also offers an interesting self-destructive feature that will delete your account, messages and contacts after a fixed amount of non-active time between another 24 months.
Telegram client apps are open sources like signals, and CNET senior editor Mo Long said open source apps can provide transparency and allow people to inspect the code for weaknesses. However, Dorov posted in 2021 that server codes are not open sources.
He wrote, “You don’t even need a server side code to test the integrity of secret chats-they are solid without how the server works (this is the whole point).” The Telegram Privacy Policy also states that the company’s cloud servers have been encrypted and “in every case the encryption keys are stored in several other data centers in various jurisdictions,” which means that employees do not have information to secure data in any one data center.
It is not uncommon to keep a closed source server code to protect intellectual property, security or other sources. However, you are still trusting the company to protect whatever data on these servers. The third party audit can help confidence by confirming that data centers work according to the intention, even if the audit can only seize this information for this snapshot.
Long said the telegram from the end of the telegram reduces the closed source server code to some extent as the messages remain safe until they are discovered on the recipient’s device. But it cannot fully protect your data.
“Even despite the end -to -end encryption, some metad data can be collected,” said Long.
Although Telegram is free, it offers more features to access one one paid level ($ 5 or annually $ 36 in a month). Some of these features have no advertisements in unlimited cloud storage, dynamic emoji and public telegram channels – yes, public channels have ads that have more than 1,000 users on telegram.
Telegram’s selective encrypted messaging but large-scale chats make it a good alternative to services such as discovers-which only offers encryption for audio and video calls. However, some of your data is still being collected for not using secret chats, so be careful.
You can download telegram for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
