Telegram's People Nearby feature can be exploited to expose the exact location of users

When Telegram rolled out its Nearby Share feature, it touted it as a tool to get in touch with people without having to share their contacts, thus enhancing their privacy. Earlier this year, the messaging app rolled out the second version of the People Nearby feature. However, according to a recent blog post by security blog Ahmed’s Notes, the People Nearby feature can be exploited by users to get the exact location of people who have shared their location on Telegram. The security blog post notes some elaborate as well as easy methods that can be used by adversaries to spoof someone’s GPS location who has enabled the People Nearby location on Telegram. However, according to Telegram’s security team, who replied to Ahmed’s query, People Nearby users are sharing their locations intentionally saying that the feature is not enabled by default and that it is expected that determining the exact location is possible under certain conditions.