Telegram founder: Would rather exit the market than destroy encryption technology through backdoors

PANews reported on April 21 that Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted on the official TG channel that France almost banned encryption technology last month. The Senate passed a law requiring communications apps to set up backdoors for police access to private information. Fortunately, this law was rejected by the National Assembly. However, three days ago, the Paris police chief once again spoke out for the law on the matter. Because technically, there is no guarantee that only the police can access the back door. Once the backdoor is introduced, it may be exploited by other parties—from foreign spies to hackers. Therefore, the private information of all law-abiding citizens can be threatened.

This law, which aims to prevent drug trafficking, will not help fight crime anyway. Even if mainstream crypto apps are weakened by backdoors, criminals can still communicate securely through dozens of smaller apps—and they are even harder to track because of the VPN. That's why Telegram would rather exit the market than destroy encryption technology and violate basic human rights through backdoors. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t sacrifice privacy for market share.

Bytes of any private information have never been leaked on Telegram. Under the EU Digital Services Act, Telegram will only disclose the suspect's IP address and phone number if a valid court order is received - rather than the information content. Last month, Freedom won. But it is also a reminder: we must continue to explain to lawmakers that encryption does not exist to protect criminals—it is to protect the privacy and security of ordinary people. Losing this protection would be tragic. The struggle is far from over. This month, the European Commission proposed a similar initiative to add backdoors to communications apps. No country is immune to the gradual erosion of freedom.