Telegram has released admin names as well as their telephone numbers as well as the IP addresses of channels that are accused of copyright infringement, in accordance with a court ruling in India in a stunning visual of the data that it holds on its users. It is also able to be required to divulge by the authorities.
The app’s owner was forced to share the data following a teacher filed a lawsuit against the company for failing to do enough to ensure that there was no illegal distribution of her class materials through the platform. Neetu Singh is the plaintiff teacher. She claimed that a variety of Telegram channels were selling her course materials without permission and at a discounted price.
An Indian court had previously issued an order 电报账号网站 to comply with Indian law and to disclose information about the operators of these channels.
Telegram has unsuccessfully claimed that disclosing information about users violates its privacy policy as well as the laws of Singapore in which it has its physical servers to store the user’s information. In reply to the appeal, the Indian court ruled that copyright holders shouldn’t be “completely ineffective against real violators” due to the fact that Telegram has decided to place its servers outside of the country.
In a decision the week before, Justice Prathiba Singh said Telegram had followed the earlier order and provided the information.
“Let the copied data be provided to ID. Counsel for plaintiffs and with the specific instruction that plaintiffs and their counsel will divulge disclosed data to any other third party, unless it is in the context of the proceedings at hand. In this regard disclosure to government police or authorities is permitted,” said the court (PDF) and was first recorded by LiveLaw.
A Telegram spokesperson would not confirm whether the app’s operator had shared personal data with the app operator.
“Telegram keeps very little or no information on its users. In the majority of cases we are unable to get access to any data of users without having specific entry points and we believe that this was the case with this. Therefore, we aren’t able to verify that any personal information is being disclosed in this case,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said to TechCrunch.
India is among the biggest markets for Telegram which has accumulated over 150 million subscribers in the South Asian market. Telegram has grown in popularity with many users, partly because of its piracy issue as I have previously written about. The platform is still littered with channels that are easily accessibleat times with thousands of users where TV and films are shared widely.