Iran Telegram

In early 2022 a massive database containing 42 million records of Iranian Telegram users was exposed online. The data appears to have been collected through unauthorized scraping or parsing of the platform rather than a direct server breach. The incident exposed sensitive personal identifiers including phone numbers and internal Telegram IDs along with user defined names and surnames. While the leak surfaced in 2022 the information within the set is estimated to have been compiled around early 2020. This scale of data collection poses significant privacy risks for individuals within the region as it allows for the deanonymization of accounts and potential mapping of social connections.