what information about user can a telegram bot access?

Question

I'm new to telegram bots, I want to know when we add a telegram bot to a group, can it access to any information about group members?? and I know about privacy mode, whether it is on or off , can bot access to any information about the user who sent a message that the bot can read??

Answer 1

A bot has access to:

• The user's unique identifier (user id)
• The user's first name
• The user's last name (if the user has specified his last name in the settings)
• The user's username (if the user has configured a username)

The bot can only extract this info from a Message (i.e. it cannot query the group member's names).

If privacy mode is disabled, the bot can read all messages sent in a group. If it is enabled, a bot is only receives messages aimed directly at the bot (e.g. using a command or a reply to a message from the bot). A user is able to check whether a bot has Privacy mode enabled/disabled in the list of group members.

Sidenote: take care when adding bots to a group that have privacy mode disabled, since they might be maliciously storing messages.

Sources:

• https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#user
• https://core.telegram.org/bots#privacy-mode