Soaring Compliance Numbers

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CEO's Arrest as a Turning Point: A key catalyst for this change appears to be the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov by French authorities in August 2024. Although Durov was later released on bail, this event seemingly put immense pressure on the company to re-evaluate its policies on cooperation with law enforcement.
Policy Amendment (September 2024): Following Durov's arrest, Telegram amended its privacy policy in September 2024. The updated Terms of Service broadened the scope under which Telegram might share user data. While still maintaining that message content remains inaccessible due to encryption, the company now explicitly states it may disclose IP addresses and phone numbers telegram data to relevant judicial authorities upon receiving a valid legal order if a user is confirmed to be a suspect in a case involving criminal activities that violate Telegram's Terms of Service. This is a significant expansion from the previous "terrorism only" clause.
Transparency reports from late 2024 and early 2025 show a dramatic increase in fulfilled data requests. For instance, between January and September 2024, Telegram fulfilled only 14 US requests, affecting 108 users. However, in the last quarter of 2024 alone, this number soared to 900 fulfilled requests relating to 2,253 users for the entire year. The trend continued into Q1 2025, with compliance numbers reaching tens of thousands of users globally. India, as Telegram's largest market, notably saw over 9,000 requests in Q1 2025 alone, affecting nearly 10,000 users.
What Data Can Be Shared?
Despite the policy shift, Telegram maintains its commitment to not providing access to the content of messages, especially those in Secret Chats, due to their E2EE implementation. However, the data that can be disclosed under valid legal orders now includes:

IP addresses: Which can reveal a user's general geographic location and internet service provider.