Pavel Durov stated that since 2013 Telegram’s secret chats have been the most secure method available for private messaging worldwide.

Durov’s explanation

He noted that message contents are excluded from push notifications to protect user privacy and to reduce the risk of unintended disclosure on locked devices.

Durov emphasized design choices in secret chats that limit data exposure outside the encrypted channel, including local-only keys and ephemeral message handling.

Concerns about Signal’s dependencies

He criticized Signal for depending on infrastructure provided by U.S. companies, mentioning AWS, Microsoft and Intel SGX as examples of third-party reliance.

According to Durov, such dependencies could create additional vectors for legal or operational pressure tied to the jurisdictions where those providers operate.

Reports on iOS notification storage

The remarks followed reports that the FBI was able to recover deleted Signal messages from iOS notification storage, where notification data may persist for up to one month.

On some iOS devices, notification content can remain outside an app’s encrypted storage, creating a potential recovery path when notifications or backups are retained.

Telegram’s comments highlight differing implementation approaches among messaging services, while technical details and scope of the reported iOS recovery remain under discussion.