There is a myriad of messengers available today. Every phone comes with at least one messaging platform pre-installed, and getting more is easier than ever. Platforms tout convenience, a large network, connecting with strangers, and end to end encryption. Sometimes we want to try out a new messenger, or our friends convince us to switch over to theirs. In some cases, we’re less than happy about the experience and want to go back to our previous messenger. Good security concience dictates to not leave any personal data behind in these cases. In this article, I’m discussing how to delete your anonymous TeleGuard account.
That being said, getting rid of your new account isn’t necessarily easy. Telegram for example required you to not log in for several months a while ago before your data was deleted automatically (they changed that lately). WhatsApp (aka Meta) and folks allow you to delete your data right away, but you never know what remains on their servers.
Let’s turn to a messenger that doesn’t know much about you in the first place: TeleGuard. I covered setting it up in an earlier article (I also explain its benefits there). To get rid of your account, let’s discuss what that means below.
What TeleGuard’s Servers Know About Your Anonymous Account
TeleGuard, being an overall privacy focused messenger, doesn’t store much about you on their servers. As my previous article explains, all data is encrypted on their servers, in transit, and even in your device’s storage. Swisscow (TeleGuard’s maker) claims that all they know and keep logs of is the unique ID you are assigned as a user. You don’t need to register your name, email address, or phone number to use it. You choose a nickname when registering, that’s it.
As per swisscow, all messages exchanged between TeleGuard users (including IP addresses, metadata, etc.) is only held by their servers until the message is delivered. Then again, the servers can’t decrypt your data either (its device-side end to end encrypted). In order to delete your account, all they have to do is invalidate that unique ID and your account is gone.
Getting Rid of your Unique TeleGuard ID
Long story short: You can’t get rid of your unique TeleGuard ID yourself. It seems that neither app (mobile, desktop) offers the option to delete your ID. Swisscow themselves mention this in their FAQ section:
The mobile app (iOS below) doesn’t have the usual “Delete Your Account” feature in the Settings (and possibly Privacy) menu either:
The most you can do here is delete your local cache. If you are privacy-minded, this is a good practice in any case, so keep it in mind.
So, how do you delete your anonymous TeleGuard account? From a data retention point of view, it makes sense to NOT delete all of your account data. Since all the TeleGuard server knows is that unique ID and doesn’t even keep logs of your connections (IP, date and time, messaging frequency, message size, contacts/peers you talk to, etc.) all you have to do is delete your local data. Deleting the TeleGuard app from desktop or mobile effectively gets rid of the only copy of your private keys; not even you can reinstantiate your account if you don’t have backups.
There’s a benefit in this approach. Imagine someone – coincidentally – is assigned your previous ID after it was swept from the TeleGuard servers. Your friends still think you use the same ID. Now this stranger pops up and they message them. You exposed yourself to impersonification without your own fault.
It Doesn’t Matter If You Can’t Delete Your TeleGuard Account
Based on the above, it doesn’t matter if you can actually delete that ID or not. TeleGuard’s servers never retain your messages (or their metadata). Your ID cannot be bound to your real identity. You can’t even go back to that ID afterwards and accidentally reveal your real IP in a live connection (if TeleGuard’s servers were to be compromised).
Forcing Deletion of your Unique ID through GDPR
There is one potential alternative way to get rid of your previous ID though. Swisscow distributes their TeleGuard app in the EU, which requires them to comply with GDPR. One of GDPR’s strengths is the Right to be Forgotten. This right allows users to request deletion of their data if the original purpose of storing them becomes void:
[…] personal data must be erased immediately where the data are no longer needed for their original processing purpose, or the data subject has withdrawn his consent and there is no other legal ground for processing […]
Excerpt from GDPR’s “Right to be Forgotten“
In this context, swisscow is obliged to delete your data based on an informal request (like a support email). How this turns out in reality is to be seen, as TeleGuard may require you to prove that this indeed is your former ID, which may be difficult. This potentially makes it in turn difficult for you to prove TeleGuard still has data about you in the first place, in which case you simply don’t need to care about it anyway.
Conclusion on Why You Don’t Need To Delete Your Account
While the idea of deleting your account data when you don’t need it anymore is great, in the case of TeleGuard you can likely just forget about it. No data on their servers can be linked to you, so calm your mind, no-one is going to get your username, email address, password hash, phone number, IPs, contacts, or messages. Simply because they aren’t stored. So rest assured, there’s no real threat if you don’t know how to delete your anonymous TeleGuard account. Deleting your private keys and local content is more than enough. If you’re looking to delete your account, you may be interested in this article!
If you liked this article, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below to get the conversation started!