Between 2,500 and 4,000 people were killed by the US drone programme in Pakistan before SKYNET was revealed to the public by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2015. This might seem like science fiction, but as former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden famously said, “We kill people based on metadata.” He was referring to a machine learning tool called SKYNET, which analysed the metadata of 55 million Pakistani phone users and determined drone strike targets for the US military. IP addresses can be used to track down individual users and even their movements. Like WhatsApp, Telegram also collects metadata – including your IP address and device type – and stores it for up to a year. Telegram did not respond when asked why they don’t implement a similar method. In January 2021, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active. Other apps, like Signal, have found a way to collect this data while anonymising it. Telegram is a free cross-platform messaging app with a focus on privacy, security, and speed. Telegram is a free messaging app that works across multiple devices, offering no limits on media sizes, end-to-end encryption via secret chats and a whopping 200,000 person group chat.

This allows the app to collect data from people who haven’t even signed up to the service. Every contact is then copied and saved by the app, so they can both notify you when someone you know signs up to Telegram, and “properly display names in notifications”, as they say in their privacy policy. Before you message anyone on Telegram, you have to grant the app access to your contact list, just like on WhatsApp.

What is a telegram app