Google temporarily locked some email accounts belonging to the Afghanistan government following the Taliban takeover, as fear grows over digital trail left by the former government, a source told Reuters .
The email lock by Google is an attempt to head off the Taliban’s hunt for the identities of former officials who worked with the recently collapsed US-backed administration.
In a statement on Friday, Alphabet Inc’s Google did not explicitly confirm that Afghan government accounts were being locked down, saying that the company was monitoring the situation in Afghanistan and “taking temporary actions to secure relevant accounts”.
Public exchange mail records show that some about dozen Afghan government bodies used Google’s servers to handle official emails, including the Afghan office of presidential protocol the ministries of finance, industry, higher education, and mines.
In the weeks since the Taliban’s takeover of U.S backed Afghanistan government administration, reports have highlighted how biometric and Afghan payroll databases might be exploited by the Taliban to hunt for Afghans who worked with the “enemies”.
The Taliban has promised the international community to grant amnesty to all, but reports from the ground appears to undermine those assurances.
Sources told Reuters there were reports of detentions and disappearances, as well as executions. One former Afghan official told the outlet he was in hiding when the Taliban showed up at his house in the middle of the night.
According to Reuters, an employee of the former government said the Taliban are seeking to acquire former officials’ emails, after he was told to save the data on his agency’s servers.
“If I do so, then they will get access to the data and official communications of the previous ministry leadership,” he told the outlet, adding he did not do what was asked and is now in hiding.
The Taliban recently took control of the last resistance hold in Panjshir, Afghanistan, securing their takeover of the Arab nation.