By Shashank Suresh
Google has temporary banned an unknown number of Afghan government e-mail accounts for the mounting of the digital path of former officers and their foreign supporters according to a well-known source of the situation. In the weeks after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan from a US-backed government, rumours have surfaced about how the new rulers may use biometric databases to track out their foes.
Alphabet‘s Google said in a statement on Friday that it was monitoring the situation in Afghanistan and “taking temporary steps to safeguard relevant accounts.” Still, it did not confirm that Afghan government accounts were being shut down.
According to publicly accessible mail exchanger data, around two dozen Afghan government organisations, including the ministries of finance, industry, higher education, and mining, used Google’s servers to process official emails. According to the data, the office of the presidential protocol in Afghanistan and specific local government entities utilised Google. Commanding government databases and emails may obtain information regarding previous administration workers, ex-ministers, government contractors, tribal friends, and foreign partners.
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“It would provide a plethora of information,” said Chad Anderson, a security researcher at DomainTools, who assisted in determining which ministries used which email platform. “Having an employee list on a Google Sheet is a major concern,” he added, citing stories of government personnel facing retaliation.
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According to mail exchanger data, Microsoft’s email services were also utilised by numerous Afghan government institutions, including the ministry of international affairs and the president. However, it’s unclear what precautions, if any, the software company is taking to prevent data from slipping into Taliban hands. The Taliban’s aim to dominate US-built digital infrastructure, according to Anderson, is worth keeping a watch on. He claimed that intelligence gleaned from that infrastructure “could be considerably more important to a young administration than outdated helicopters.”
