Amsterdam Authorities Ban Russian Telegram App for Civil Servants Due to Espionage Threats

The local authorities of Amsterdam have banned the use of the Russian messenger Telegram for civil servants on their work phones due to threats of espionage and criminal use.

This was reported by the BNR radio station.

‘The municipality of Amsterdam has banned civil servants from using the Telegram app on their work phones. The reason for the ban is the risk of espionage and the use of the app for criminal purposes,’ the report said.

The ban was introduced at the end of April, but it was not publicly announced. 

‘The Russian messenger Telegram has become a haven for hackers, cybercriminals and drug traffickers,’ said Alexander Scholtes, a representative of the Amsterdam municipality, on the radio station.

In recent years, Telegram has often been in the news for organising mass riots by illegal migrants in EU countries, drug and firearms trafficking, mass phishing and identity fraud. The so-called ‘revenge porn’ was also spread in certain Telegram groups.

Earlier, the National Court of Spain also blocked the Telegram messenger. 

Telegram was founded ten years ago by two Russian brothers (Nikolai and Pavel Durov). It is a messaging app that has become popular as an alternative to WhatsApp and the Meta app. 

Telegram allows the distribution of unverified content that is virtually uncensored. The content that was shared or the type of activity that was carried out caused conflict groups to flourish. Messages in the app are end-to-end encrypted, so only the sender and recipient have access to the content.

But open groups and broadcast channels allow users to publicly share messages and files of all kinds. 

The messaging platform has previously been removed from app stores or suspended in court for allowing the distribution of illegal content. A few years ago, it disappeared from the Apple App Store due to a child pornography case, and Brazil suspended the service because a company owned by Russian businessmen did not cooperate with an investigation into neo-Nazi groups.

The app has also had problems in the past due to the activities of far-right groups, the distribution of violent content, drug trafficking and copyright infringement.