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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov must appear in court for possible charges after his release from police custody, French authorities said on Wednesday. “An investigating judge has lifted Pavel Durov's police custody and will have him brought to court for an initial hearing and possible charges,” said a statement from the Paris prosecutor's office, quoted in an Associated Press article.
Durov was arrested in Paris on Saturday and questioned by police for several days. The French investigating judge will “decide whether to formally charge him following his arrest as part of an investigation into organized crime on the messaging app,” Reuters wrote today.
“Being officially investigated in France does not mean one is guilty or that a trial is inevitable, but it shows that judges believe the case is sufficiently substantiated to proceed with the investigation. Investigations can take years before they are brought to court or put on hold,” Reuters wrote. The judge's decision on an official investigation is expected today, the article said.
On Monday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau issued a statement saying that Durov was arrested “as part of a judicial investigation” against an “unnamed person.” The wording leaves open the possibility that the unnamed person is someone else, but the prosecutor's statement lists a number of possible charges that could provide clues as to what Durov could be charged with.
The police were allowed to detain Durov for up to 96 hours in accordance with “the current procedure for crimes of organized crime,” the statement said. This 96-hour period would have expired today.
Three possible charges relate to encryption. These charges are: “Providing cryptology services with the aim of ensuring confidentiality without a certified declaration”, “Providing a cryptology tool that does not exclusively ensure authentication or integrity monitoring without a prior declaration” and “Importing a cryptology tool that ensures authentication or integrity monitoring without a prior declaration”.
French law requires cryptographic providers to make declarations to the French cybersecurity agency ANSSI.
Telegram offers a mix of private messaging and social network features. Telegram messages do not have end-to-end encryption by default, but the security feature can be enabled for one-on-one conversations.
French authorities also reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Durov's brother and Telegram co-founder, Nikolai. According to Politico, the arrest warrants for both men were issued back in March.
Focus on child sexual abuse material
Other possible charges listed in the prosecutor's statement appear to relate to a lack of moderation on Telegram and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement. Possible charges include complicity in the possession and distribution of “pornographic images of minors” and complicity in drug trafficking.
The prosecutor also cited possible charges of complicity in the “webmastering action on an online platform to facilitate illegal transactions in an organized group” and “refusal to provide, upon request from the competent authorities, information or documents necessary for the implementation and operation of surveillance measures permitted by law.”
In response to Durov's arrest, Telegram stated that it follows laws and industry standards when moderating and called it “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of that platform.”
Several news reports this week focused on Telegram's apparent refusal to join other social networks' child protection programs. “The app is not a member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) or the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) – both of which work with most online platforms to find, report and remove such material,” the BBC wrote.
Benjamin Bull, general counsel for the NCMEC, told NPR, “You find child pornography, CSAM, on X, on TikTok, on all the major internet platforms. But Telegram is a world apart.” Bull said, “Telegram has refused to work with us. The more we go after them, the more they refuse to respond. They feel like they're above the law. They feel like they can do whatever they want.”