The new feature, called Passport, was announced Thursday via a Telegram blog post. Telegram bills it as “a unified authorization method for services that require personal identification.”
According to Telegram, any identification obtained by the feature is protected by end-to-end encryption, and a password only the user knows. “Telegram has no access to the data you store in your Telegram passport,” reads the blog post. “When you share data, it goes directly to the recipient.”
The feature is aimed at users who need to sign up for services using real-world IDs, like a passport or driver’s license.
Telegram says that this service could be used for people signing up for financial services or ICOs. Telegram users can test Passport using this page.
There are additional set up instructions available on the developer website.
Some history
At the beginning of June, Apple approved the first update to Telegram that made the app GDPR-compliant since Telegram was banned in Russia in April for the app refusing to hand over user data to Russian authorities. The founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, said that Apple had been blocking the app from issuing updates since the Russian ban.
The next step
Looking ahead, Telegram says it has plans to move all Telegram Passport data to a decentralized cloud.
Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt, called the new feature a “(n)atural expansion for the Telegram platform and its token ecosystem,” following that with a mention of how Facebook is very likely to be “paying close attention to this.”
