Telegram founder Pavel Durov charged with cybercrime

News of Durov's arrest was first shared on LinkedIn by Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary general of France's child protection agency Ofmin. Bernigaud's LinkedIn accounts and posts appear to have since been deleted.

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that Durov's arrest was a legal matter rather than a political move. “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said. “It will remain so. The arrest of Telegram's president on French soil came as part of an ongoing legal investigation. It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”

Duval, who was born in the former Soviet Union, founded the Russian social network VK – the Russian equivalent of Facebook – but left the country in 2014 after the Russian government pressured him to disclose data about the platform's users.

In an interview with right-wing US commentator Tucker Carlson in April, Duval claimed he moved to Dubai after being put under similar pressure by the US government to build backdoors into Telegram. He said the company employs 30 engineers and has no human resources department. The company relies solely on word of mouth to attract new users.

Telegram positions itself as an anti-censorship platform and claims to have played a prominent role in the pro-democracy movements in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Hong Kong.

The service offers encrypted messaging features via “secret chats.” Unlike other encrypted messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp, encryption is not enabled by default.

It allows the exchange of messages in groups of up to 200,000 people and the transmission of material through channels to a large audience.

Encryption breaches

The French indictment accuses Duval of violating French laws that restrict the provision of cryptographic services without “prior declaration.”

Under French law, operators of encrypted communications services face fines, prison sentences or confiscation of their products without obtaining formal authorization.

Law enforcement agencies and governments are putting pressure on encrypted messaging services to adopt technologies such as client-side scanning to detect illegal content.

In August, in the wake of the Huw Edwards scandal, the National Crime Agency claimed that while technology to identify illegal images existed, it was not being used by technology companies such as WhatsApp.

However, proposals to require technology companies to use technology to detect illegal images in encrypted services have been widely criticized by leading cryptographers and computer scientists, who argue that such technologies would fundamentally undermine the use of encryption.

Duval's arrest has raised concerns among other providers of encrypted messaging services. Andy Yen, CEO and founder of encrypted mail service Proton, called the charges against Durov “insane” in a post on X. “If it is upheld, I don't see how tech founders can even travel to France, let alone hire in France. This is economic suicide and will quickly and permanently change the perception of founders and investors.”

He said the extraterritorial nature of the charges against Durov was also troubling. “France says that a service that runs on servers in a foreign jurisdiction and is based abroad can now be subject to its jurisdiction,” he wrote. “The only [French] The connection is that Durov made the mistake of taking French citizenship.”