Telegram denies allegations that contractors handling its servers have ties to Russian intelligence
Telegram has responded to an investigation from the news outlet iStories, which reported that part of the messaging app’s server infrastructure is maintained by a company that has worked with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
Telegram’s press office told BBC News Russian that the company “has contracts with dozens of different service providers around the world,” but none of them “has access to Telegram’s data or confidential infrastructure.”
“All Telegram servers are owned by Telegram and maintained by Telegram staff. Unauthorized access is not possible. Telegram has no employees or servers in Russia. In the entire history of Telegram, not once has it handed over private messages to third parties, and its encryption has never been broken,” the press office said in a comment to the outlet Vot Tak.
iStories’s investigation, titled “How Telegram is linked to the FSB,” was published on Tuesday. It claimed that “the messenger’s infrastructure is handled by people who service secret facilities used by Russian security agencies to surveil citizens.”
