Durov recognizes “the seriousness of the facts” accused of Telegram

The founder of Telegram Pavel Durov, indicted in Paris for complicity in criminal activities, admitted before the investigating judges to having “become aware in police custody of the seriousness of the facts” alleged against his platform and promised to “ improve” its moderation.

During his indictment at the end of August, Pavel Durov first blamed the French failure to alert, according to statements obtained on Saturday by AFP.

And he assured that he had always been “available and ready to respond to all requests” from France. Moreover, Pavel Durov assures that the “French authorities”, including “the president’s office, the French consul in Dubai” and even “an agent of the DGSI”, internal intelligence, knew his “personal Telegram account” and his “place” of residence.

The DGSI agent said he was satisfied with Telegram’s cooperation but, according to him, other investigative services requested “wrong email addresses”. At each signal, “I did my best” to respond “up to the task,” assured the 40-year-old billionaire.

“A leak”

On December 6, for his first interrogation on the merits, Mr. Durov nevertheless admitted to having “become aware of the seriousness of all these facts (…) in police custody”. He “did not create” Telegram in 2013 with his brother “for criminals” but their presence, “a minimal fraction”, “has also increased”, concedes this man who has several nationalities, including French.

The judges wonder: does the platform accurately verify the identity of its users? “No, and I think this is the case for all messaging services,” replies Pavel Durov.

They also question him about the encryption of part of the conversations. An “industry standard”, retorts Pavel Durov, satisfied that no Telegram employee “can have access to messages” and cause “a leak”, because an algorithm manages the decoding.

The judges then detail around fifteen groups dedicated to child crime, narcotics, scams, weapons, the search for assassins, sometimes having a presence on the platform, which earned the CEO of Telegram his indictment for complicity in criminal activities.

Telegram is “efficient”

“Are you aware that the ease of use of Telegram allows anyone to access illicit platforms, in a much simpler way, in particular than on the dark web?”, they ask him.

Mr Durov “disagrees”. Telegram is “efficient” and deletes “15 to 20 million user accounts and one to two million channels and groups” monthly.

The billionaire blames the lack of feedback from the justice system or associations, and claims to have recently launched partnerships with some of them.

“Why not have done it before?” insists a judge, also recalling the media alerts. Pavel Durov recognizes a new “error”: having considered that the latter “never contained anything solid”.

A judge also questions him about the “People Nearby” function, suspected of having provided geolocated criminal services. “In the majority of countries”, this option, remodeled after police custody, was not used for “illegal purposes”, assures Mr. Durov.

The judge squeaks: “France may have a particularity when it comes to gastronomy, but certainly not when it comes to delinquency.”

Mr. Durov repeats that he is “personally disgusted” by these offenses, “bad for society and business”. If the Dubai-based company announced its first annual net profit at the end of December, according to Pavel Durov, it suffers from $2 billion in debt.

“Our moderation processes”

“We are committed to improving our moderation processes,” he promises, echoing public announcements in September, welcomed by Emmanuel Macron, on his increased collaboration with the judicial authorities or on moderation which must become “a source of pride” . “My teams have made a lot of progress,” underlines Mr. Durov.

In France, Telegram claims to have responded to 4 legal requests in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 673 for the last. According to data collected by Internet users that Telegram did not confirm to AFP, a comparable progression is visible in a large majority of countries.

Over the first six months of 2024, globally, Telegram delivered “identification information (…) concerning more than 10,000 users”, according to Mr. Durov. “It’s not much compared to” your claimed 950 million users, says an investigating magistrate.

The judges must re-examine in detail Mr. Durov, who must provide supporting documents. When asked, Me David-Olivier Kaminski, his lawyer, did not respond.

Telegram told AFP that the messaging service “has been cooperating with judicial authorities around the world since 2018, providing information on criminals when requested by valid requests and through the correct communication channels.”

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