Telegram Passport: Why Upload Your Documents?

Good morning, everyone, this is Pavluu. Three days ago, Telegram announced the launch of Telegram Passport, and many users immediately had two main questions: “How safe is it?” and “Why do we even need this?” This article will help you find answers to both questions.

Why Do We Even Need This?

Telegram Passport is a unified way to verify your identity for all services that require identification. This includes various exchanges, ICOs, and financial services, since they all require verification and document uploads. Telegram decided to simplify this process and integrate it with the messenger, which is definitely a plus.

Telegram suggests that, over time, some services may not need to request your data directly, relying instead on the fact that your account has already been verified by Telegram.

For example, the electronic payment system ePayments already supports verification through Telegram Passport.

Another important point is that Telegram is working toward implementing blockchain technology with built-in verification. As reported back in May, Telegram Passport is the first product for the TON blockchain platform.

How Safe Is It?

Your identity documents and other personal data are stored in Telegram’s cloud using end-to-end encryption. The data is encrypted with a password that only you know, so Telegram does not have access to the information you store in your Telegram Passport. This allows users to securely share their identification data directly with third parties.

To reiterate, at the moment, user data is stored in Telegram’s cloud. However, “in the future, all Telegram Passport data will move to a decentralized cloud.”

Anything Else?

If you’re interested in the technical side of things, you can check it out here (in English).

If you want to try Telegram Passport for yourself, you can do so here.

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