India’s government is taking steps to monitor the messaging app Telegram due to concerns about the spread of illegal content, including child sexual abuse material and financial scams.

Government Report

A recent report by the Home Ministry’s Cybercrime Coordination Centre found that Telegram is being used extensively to share such content. The report was submitted in court as part of the government’s successful defence of a one-week ban of the app after a question paper to the country’s medical school exam was allegedly leaked.

The Indian government said in the report it is concerned about Telegram’s privacy features, which allow users to interact without needing to reveal a phone number, making identity detection difficult. This is not possible on WhatsApp, the most popular chat app in India with over 500 million users.

Cyber criminals use Telegram to access closed groups/channels, and the Indian government is proactively monitoring such Telegram groups and channels. The government has received over 688,000 complaints about Telegram being used for cyber fraud since 2023, causing an estimated loss of some $750 million to Indian citizens.

International Scrutiny

Telegram has faced scrutiny in other countries as well. France launched a probe into activity by organised crime on the app in 2024. That same year, Telegram was at the centre of an uproar in South Korea over sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of women that were often found in the app’s chatrooms, and in Spain, its use was temporarily suspended over copyright concerns.

In April, Britain’s communications regulator launched an investigation into Telegram after evidence suggested child sexual abuse material was being shared on the platform. Telegram has denied the allegations and said since 2018 it has virtually eliminated the public spread of child sexual abuse material on its platform through detection algorithms.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.