A guide to getting your data from Telegram
Your Telegram app stores a lot of information about you in the cloud. Here we show you how to gain access to it.
The information you (consciously or not) share with Telegram can be very revealing. It can also be (mis)interpreted by government agencies and used to profile individuals. Once installed on a device, depending on your settings, the Telegram app may have access to information such as your location, contact information and media stored on the same device. All of this data can be potentially be accessed remotely using cloud extraction technology.
Your Telegram app generates a lot of data that can also be stored on your device and elsewhere. It’s important for you to be able to understand the types of data that apps like Telegram generate. Government agencies may seek access to this data through at least two routes: they could directly access your device and then analyse the data stored in the app and data your app shares and can access on Telegram’s servers (and potentially data backed-up to your cloud provider) using ‘cloud extraction’ techniques, or they may request your data from Telegram directly.
Tools such as the Oxygen Forensic Cloud Extractor can be used to acquire “data from the most popular cloud services” including WhatsApp, iCloud, Google, Microsoft, Mi Cloud, Huawei, Samsung, E-Mail (IMAP) Servers and more - “also various social media services are supported to include but not limited to: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many more.”
How to find out what data Telegram stores about you
a) In order to be able to access your data, you will need to download the Telegram desktop app. You will not be able to access your data from the phone app itself. If you are on macOS, you need to install the cross-platform version of Telegram (which you can get from here).
b) Open your Telegram desktop app and ensure you are signed into your Telegram account.
c) On the desktop app's homescreen, click on the three horizontal lines on the top left corner to open the app menu. Once the menu pops up, select "Settings".
d) On the screen that shows the 'Settings' options, scroll down to the 'Privacy and Security' option, then select 'Export Telegram Data'.
e) When you select the option to 'Export Telegram Data,' you will see a number of information categories that you can export ranging from 'Account information', 'personal chats' and 'contact list'. Please select the information categories you wish to access.
f) You can choose the format you wish to export your data in. Choose to either export it in human readable HTML or in machine-readable JSON format, then click 'Export.'
g) When you have clicked 'Export' the desktop app will collate the requested information. When that process is done, you will be able to click on the 'Show My Data' button.
Limiting data Telegram collects about you
a) Unfortunately, you cannot limit the location data that Telegram collects about you.
b) However, if you want to find out more about the steps you can take to safeguard your privacy whilst using Telegram, you can read our Telegram good practices guide.
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