Telegram Introduced End-to-End Encrypted Calls. Privacy FTW!

Telegram, the encrypted chat app, has begun rolling up a new feature that can be considered the next step after encrypted chats: encrypted voice calls.

Now available in Western Europe, and with a worldwide rolling coming very soon, Telegram Calls are voice calls that utilise Telegram’s own end-to-end encryption. These encrypted voice calls are usually done over a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection, although Telegram may occasionally connect you to the closest server possible in the event that a P2P connection cannot be established.

For those who would like some control over their calls, Telegram will let users control the people that are able to contact you via voice call. This could range from everyone who uses the app, to people that are in your contacts list, or no one at all.

To improve upon the user experience of Telegram Calls, the service is linked to a neural network that learns from feedback from the user and their device. From there, the neural network could optimize various parameters to improve the quality of your future calls.

Telegram’s decision to roll out a voice call functionality shouldn’t be all that surprising considering that many other chat applications have similar features. The inclusion of end-to-end encryption shouldn’t be too surprising either as the app has been boasting of its security ever since it was first launched.

While Telegram’s decision to roll out an encrypted voice call system would be good news to those who value privacy, rest assured that this feature will not sit well with some governments. Telegram has had a history of being used by some less than savoury groups before, and the introduction of an encrypted voice chat system would surely attract some groups to adopt the app.

Seeing as some governments around the world have been trying to weaken encryption in the name of security, you can expect Telegram to be dragged under the spotlight in the near future.