For fear of espionage, government officials in Amsterdam are no longer allowed to use the messaging app Telegram on their (work) phones.

Government officials working for the municipal government of Amsterdam are no longer allowed to use Telegram on the phone they take to work. The municipal council itself confirmed this to the Dutch BNR. The ban has been in effect since April.

The local council justified this decision with two reasons. Firstly, Telegram was described as a “haven for hackers, cybercriminals and drug traffickers”. The messaging app regularly receives negative messages because it is a popular haven for drug and arms trafficking as well as the distribution of pornography. The second argument is the risk of espionage.

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Amsterdam is the first Dutch public body to take action against Telegram. This has been discussed several times at the national level without any concrete action being taken. The decision of the Amsterdam board will most likely reignite the debate about Telegram.

The Netherlands previously banned TikTok for government employees at a national level. The Ministry of the Interior maintains a blacklist of potentially dangerous apps that officials would rather not have on their (work) phone. The list consists mainly of Russian and Chinese applications. In addition to TikTok, BNR also mentions the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu.

Bad relations with Moscow

The espionage argument is difficult to prove for Telegram. The messaging app seems to be making accusations mainly because of its Russian origins. However, founder Pavel Durov does not have a good relationship with the Kremlin. Telegram was mainly used by opposition members and was even banned in Russia for several years because it allegedly contributed to “terrorist acts”. The headquarters have been moved to Dubai and the company is officially registered in the Cayman Islands.

There is no denying that Telegram is popular in criminal circles. Telegram does not take any measures against this because it says it attaches great importance to freedom of expression. The messaging app places great value on privacy and anonymity: with some extensive data protection functions, users are well protected.

For Telegram, it doesn’t matter if an account is linked to an active or temporary phone number and a search function allows groups a wide reach without having to manually add numbers. Users have a lot of control over deleting their data and in addition to end-to-end encryption, Telegram also applies “disappearing” messages. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, the encryption used by Telegram is not based on public protocols.

Belgian supervision

A ban on Telegram has not been discussed in Belgium so far, but it would not be an isolated case. The Belgian government introduced a ban on the use of TikTok on the phones of government officials, including ministers, in March 2023. The BIPT was appointed the messaging app’s supervisor in May under the DSA regulations.