By David Greene and Eva Galperin

EFF is closely monitoring the situation in France in which Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov was charged with having committed criminal offenses, most of them seemingly related to the operation of Telegram. This situation has the potential to pose a serious danger to security, privacy, and freedom of expression for Telegram's 950 million users.  

On August 24th, French authorities detained Durov when his private plane landed in France. Since then, the French prosecutor has revealed that Durov's detention was related to an ongoing investigation, begun in July, of an "unnamed person." The investigation involves complicity in crimes presumably taking place on the Telegram platform, failure to cooperate with law enforcement requests for the interception of communications on the platform, and a variety of charges having to do with failure to comply with  French cryptography import regulations. On August 28, Durov was charged with each of those offenses, among others not related to Telegram, and then released on the condition that he check in regularly with French authorities and not leave France.