(PresidentialWire.com)- Google has reportedly locked government accounts in Afghanistan after the Taliban, the Jihadist extremist organization that recently took control of the country is attempting to access various online accounts, emails, and computer systems. A report from Reuters cited a person familiar with the matter.
Reuters also described how a former government employee in Afghanistan said that the Taliban had asked him in late July to save all data on the ministry he was working for at the time on servers that they could access later, presumably knowing that the takeover of the country was just a matter of time.
The employee said that he is now in hiding as he didn’t cooperate with the Taliban’s request at the time, meaning he denied the new government of the country access to data and official communications from the last administration. It is unknown where this man now is, whether he has applied for a visa to enter the United States, and what his future holds.
Some two dozen officials who all worked in various federal departments in Afghanistan relied on Google for all of their official communications, according to the Reuters report. Local governments also used Google for all of their official work – prompting Google to announce on Friday that it was taking “temporary actions to secure relevant accounts.” The tech giant did not, however, admit to totally locking down the accounts at this point.
A spokesperson from Google said that they had consulted experts who are “continuously assessing the situation” in the country and that they will respond as new information comes in.
According to the anonymous source who spoke to Reuters, accounts were completely locked down to prevent information in those accounts being used to help the Taliban track down individuals who worked in the last government.
