Telegram widely used for crimes, less accountable than WhatsApp: State Police to Kerala High Court

In a response filed before the Kerala High Court this month, the State Police has echoed concerns raised by law student Athena Solomon in her PIL seeking a ban on the online messaging platform Telegram..The counter affidavit signed off by Syamkumar A, an officer of the Cyber Dome on behalf of the State Police Chief states,.“With the kind of anonymity and security Telegram application is providing to its users and the reluctance from the applications providers to co-operate with the Law Enforcement Agencies, it is becoming nearly impossible to trace out details of users using the application. .The only way we had met with some success is by exploiting the ignorance of some users by way of some social engineering techniques, with only minimum success rate. This situation had given a scenario to have a safe haven for the criminals to do all illegal activities by misusing the anonymity provided by the application. (sic)”.The counter affidavit highlights that Telegram offers a degree of anonymity greater that WhatsApp since users are identified by usernames instead of their registered mobile numbers. The counter states,.“A telegram user can hide their registered mobile number even from the admins of groups or channels and can still be able to send texts, images, videos or files anonymously.. Unlike other chat applications like WhatsApp where phone numbers are available for identification of an account holder, telegram can be used by displaying a username alone and by hiding the registered mobile number, makes it impossible for LEAs to collect account details from the Service Providers.“.Content on telegram may be shared through channels, groups or individual chats, the State goes on to inform. As far as chats are concerned, the counter points out that it has various features such as “end-to-end encryption, leaving no trace on server, self-destructive timer, chat forwarding blocked, capture screenshots blocked etc.” .In this background, the State has submitted that it is widely misused for criminal purposes, such as the broadcast of pornography, financial fraud activities, carding (selling of Credit/Debit card details) movie piracy etc. It is further submitted that law enforcement agencies find it difficult to investigate crimes committed on or through telegram, owing to the reluctance of the platform proprietors to cooperate. In this regard, the counter states,.“i. Telegram does not provide any law enforcement support as provided by other messaging applications like WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. .ii. Telegram servers are hosted outside India. .iii. They have no given any subscriber details to the Law Enforcement Agencies in Kerala so far.”.Also read: Plea in Kerala High Court seeks a ban on Telegram App.In view of these concerns, the State has urged that the Telegram be made more accountable to investigating agencies when it comes to legal violations. As stated in the counter,.“… action may be taken by the competent authority to make the application owners abide by regional laws for operating in the country … to put up their servers within the country and to put in place a system, where they respond to calls/queries from LEAs on criminal matters.”.[Read the counter affidavit]