LONDON

The municipality of Amsterdam has banned its civil servants from using the messaging app Telegram on their work phones due to concerns over criminal activity and potential espionage, local media reported on Monday.

The ban, which was implemented at the end of April but only recently made public, is attributed to fears that Telegram could be a "safe haven for hackers, cybercriminals, and drug dealers," according to a spokesperson for the municipality, as reported by NL Times and broadcaster BNR.

While no other Dutch municipalities have yet banned Telegram, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD had previously raised concerns about espionage threats from apps originating in countries with "offensive cyber programs." The service had also flagged apps such as the Russian VKontakte and the Chinese shopping apps Temu and AliExpress as being particularly risky.

Telegram, which boasts nearly a billion users globally and approximately 2 million users in the Netherlands, is now the largest app to be banned by a Dutch authority since the government prohibited TikTok on civil servants' phones last year.