GOOGLE CHINA PROTOTYPE LINKS SEARCHES TO PHONE NUMBERS
GOOGLE CHINA PROTOTYPE LINKS SEARCHES TO PHONE NUMBERS
By Ryan Gallagher September 14 2018, 12:25 p.m.
GOOGLE BUILT A prototype of a censored search engine for
China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making
it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept
can reveal.
The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for
Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China’s ruling
Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free
speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
Previously undisclosed details about the plan, obtained
by The Intercept on Friday, show that Google compiled a censorship blacklist
that included terms such as “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel
Prize” in Mandarin.
Leading human rights groups have criticized Dragonfly,
saying that it could result in the company “directly contributing to, or
[becoming] complicit in, human rights violations.” A central concern expressed
by the groups is that, beyond the censorship, user data stored by Google on the
Chinese mainland could be accessible to Chinese authorities, who routinely
target political activists and journalists.
Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of
the search engine linked the search app on a user’s Android smartphone with
their phone number. This means individual people’s searches could be easily
tracked – and any user seeking out information banned by the government could
potentially be at risk of interrogation or detention if security agencies were
to obtain the search records from Google.
“This is very problematic from a privacy point of view,
because it would allow far more detailed tracking and profiling of people’s
behavior,” said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher with Human Rights
Watch. “Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people
to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in
China.”
The search engine would be operated as part of a “joint
venture” partnership with a company based in mainland China, according to
sources familiar with the project. People working for the joint venture would
have the capability to update the search term blacklists, the sources said,
raising new questions about whether Google executives in the U.S. would be able
to maintain effective control and oversight over the censorship.
Sources familiar with Dragonfly said the search platform
also appeared to have been tailored to replace weather and air pollution data
with information provided directly by an unnamed source in Beijing. The Chinese
government has a record of manipulating details about pollution in the
country’s cities. One Google source said the company had built a system,
integrated as part of Dragonfly, that was “essentially hardcoded to force their
[Chinese-provided] data.” The source raised concerns that the Dragonfly search
system would be providing false pollution data that downplayed the amount of
toxins in the air.
Google has so far declined to publicly address concerns
about the Chinese censorship plans and did not respond to a request for comment
on this story. In the six weeks since the first details about Dragonfly were
revealed, the company has refused to engage with human rights groups, ignored
dozens of reporters’ questions, and rebuffed U.S. senators.
The pressure on Google has continued to intensify. On
Thursday, 16 U.S. lawmakers wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing
“serious concerns” about Dragonfly and demanding information about the
company’s China plans. Meanwhile, Jack Poulson, a former Google senior research
scientist, told The Intercept that he was one of about five employees to have
resigned from the company due to Dragonfly.
“I view our intent to capitulate to censorship and
surveillance demands in exchange for access to the Chinese market as a
forfeiture of our values and governmental negotiating position across the
globe,” Poulson told Google bosses in his resignation letter.
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