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Google’s privacy chief confirms existence of ‘censored Chinese search engine’ Project Dragonfly

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Keith Enright, chief privacy officer at Google, testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on safeguards for consumer data privacy in Washington, US, on September 26, 2018. Photo: Reuters

Google has confirmed for the first time the existence of Project Dragonfly, reportedly a censored search engine for China, but a company executive told the US Senate he did not know details of the project.

“There is a Project Dragonfly,” Google’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright told a Senate hearing on Wednesday, but maintained that he was “not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of the scope for that project”.

Project Dragonfly was earlier reported to be the code name for Google’s secret mission to develop a censored search app specifically for China, which would blacklist websites on human rights, democracy, religion and other issues deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, according to a report published last month by The Intercept.

“My understanding is that we’re not close to launching a search product in China, and whether we eventually could, or would, remains unclear,” Enright said repeatedly in response to lawmakers’ questions regarding the company’s plan for a China-focused search engine and its implications for censorship and human rights.

The privacy chief added that if plans to launch a search product for China were in the final stages, he and his team would already be actively engaged in conducting privacy reviews to ensure the product adhered to Google’s privacy values.

“Any product we launch anywhere in the world will reflect our values and commitment we made to our users,” Enright said.

Google executives made similar remarks in August, saying the company was “not close to launching” a search product in China, according to reports citing an internal meeting with employees. The executives reportedly said the company was still considering how to do business in the country. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said that plans to re-enter China with a search engine were “exploratory” and in the “early stages”, according to Bloomberg.

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