On April 21, Telegram founder Pavel Durov issued an article on the official TG channel saying that France almost banned encryption technology last month. The Senate has passed a law requiring messaging apps to create backdoors for police to access private information. Fortunately, the law was rejected by the National Assembly. However, three days ago, the Paris police chief once again spoke out in support of the law. Because technically, there is no guarantee that only the police will have access to the back door. Once a backdoor is introduced, it can be exploited by others-from foreign spies to hackers. As a result, the private information of all law-abiding citizens may be threatened. The law, which aims to prevent drug trafficking, will not help fight crime in any way. Even if mainstream encryption applications are weakened by backdoors, criminals can still communicate securely through dozens of smaller apps-and they are even more difficult to track because of VPNs. This is why Telegram would rather withdraw from the market than use backdoors to destroy encryption technology and violate basic human rights. Unlike some of our competitors, we will not sacrifice privacy for market share. No bytes of private information have ever been leaked on Telegram. According to the European Union's Digital Services Act, if a valid court order is received, Telegram will only disclose the suspect's IP address and phone number-but not the content of the information. Last month, freedom won. But it's also a reminder: We must continue to explain to lawmakers that encryption does not exist to protect criminals-it does exist to protect the privacy and security of ordinary people. Losing this protection would be tragic. This struggle is far from over. This month, the European Commission introduced a similar initiative to add backdoors to communication applications. No country is immune from the gradual erosion of freedom.