Reading along prohibited: Chat app Telegram must pay fine in Russia
Telegram, the internationally popular messaging service, has been fined in Russia for refusing to allow the FSB, the country's domestic intelligence agency, to read its encrypted messages.
A Moscow court rejected a corresponding complaint by the company. This was reported by Russian media on Friday. The FSB had demanded information on the decryption of Telegram messages. Telegram rejected this demand and was therefore fined the equivalent of more than 10,000 euros.
Because of its encryption, Telegram is popular with opposition activists in many countries. The Russian domestic intelligence service suspects that terrorists are also using the communication.
The fine was imposed last year. Because Telegram founder Pavel Durov refused to provide the encryption code, a Moscow court even ordered its closure in April.
The chat service then switched to servers abroad. To prevent this, the supervisory authority Roskomnadzor had around 16 million IP addresses blocked. There were protests against this. Telegram can still be used in Russia. (SDA)
