On August 25th, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was detained in Paris, France and faced multiple charges including fraud, Money Laundering, and terrorism. On August 29th, Pavel Durov was released after paying a bail of 5 million euros, but he is not allowed to leave France. Full event summary: 'Real-time Update | South Korea investigates Telegram; encryption-related business accounts for 40% of Telegram's total revenue'.

After a week of silence, Durov made his first statement on the Paris detention incident in his official personal channel this morning. Here is the full text of his statement:

Thank you for your support and concern!

Last month, I was questioned by the police for four days after arriving in Paris. I was told that I might have to take personal responsibility for the illegal use of Telegram by others, because the French authorities had not received a response from Telegram.

This surprises me for the following reasons:

1. Telegram has an official representative in the European Union who is responsible for receiving and responding to requests from the EU. Its email address has been made public, and anyone in the EU can simply search on Google for 'Telegram EU law enforcement department contact address' to find it.

2. The France authorities have several ways to contact me for assistance. As a France citizen, I am a regular visitor to the France Consulate in Dubai. Previously, when they asked, I personally helped them set up a hotline with Telegram to deal with the terrorist threat in France.

3. If a country is dissatisfied with a certain internet service, the usual practice is to file a lawsuit against the service itself. It is a mistake to hold the platform CEO responsible for the crimes committed by third parties on the platform using pre-smartphone era laws. Building technology is already difficult enough. If innovators know that they may be personally liable for the potential misuse of these tools, they will never develop new tools.

Finding the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You must reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement demands, as well as local laws with EU laws. You also need to consider technical limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally while ensuring that these processes are not abused in countries with weak legal systems. We have always been committed to working with regulatory authorities to find the right balance. Yes, we adhere to our principles: our experience is shaped by the mission of protecting users' safety in authoritarian regimes. But at the same time, we are always willing to engage in dialogue.

Sometimes we cannot find a suitable balance between privacy and security with the regulatory agencies of a certain country. In these cases, we are ready to leave that country. In fact, we have already done so. When Russia asked us to hand over the 'encryptionSecret Key' for monitoring purposes, we refused - and Telegram was banned in Russia. When Iran asked us to block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused - and Telegram was banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that are incompatible with our principles, because we do not do these things to make money. We do them to bring goodwill and defend people's basic rights, especially where these rights are violated.

However, this does not mean that Telegram is perfect. For example, authorities are confused about the channels through which requests are sent, and this is an area we need to improve. But it is completely untrue for some media to call Telegram a kind of lawless paradise. We delete millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (such as this one or this one). We also have established direct hotlines with non-governmental organizations to expedite the handling of urgent review requests.

However, we have noticed that some voices believe this is not enough. The number of Telegram users has surged to 9.5 billion, bringing with it the growing pains that make it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That's why I will ensure that we continue to improve in this area. We have already started this process internally and will soon share more details about our progress with everyone.

I hope the events in August will make Telegram, as well as the entire Social Web industry, safer and stronger. Thank you again for your concern and support.

Original link