--- layout: default title: "Indian Government to Bar Politicians from Using Gmail for Official Business" description: "A The Register report by Neil McAllister on India's proposed Gmail ban for government officials, quoting Sunil Abraham of CIS on transparency and anti-corruption grounds." categories: [Media mentions] date: 2013-08-30 authors: ["Neil McAllister"] source: "The Register" permalink: /media/indian-government-bar-politicians-gmail-the-register/ created: 2026-03-16 --- **Indian Government to Bar Politicians from Using Gmail for Official Business** is a news report published in *The Register* on 30 August 2013, written by Neil McAllister. The article covers India's plan to bar government employees from using Gmail and other foreign-hosted email services, following revelations by Edward Snowden about US electronic surveillance of foreign governments. [Sunil Abraham](/sunil/) is quoted arguing that the case for a government email policy goes beyond foreign spying — extending to transparency and anti-corruption imperatives. ## Contents 1. [Article Details](#article-details) 2. [Full Text](#full-text) 3. [Context and Background](#context-and-background) 4. [External Link](#external-link) ## Article Details
📰 Published in:
The Register
📅 Date:
30 August 2013
👤 Author:
Neil McAllister
📄 Type:
News Report
🔗 Read Online:
Read on The Register
## Full Text

The government of India is reportedly planning to bar its employees from using Gmail and other foreign-based email services, amid concerns over surveillance by US spy agencies.

"Gmail data of Indian users resides in other countries as the servers are located outside," J Satyanarayana, India's secretary of electronics and information technology, told the Times of India. "Currently, we are looking to address this in the government domain, where there are large amounts of critical data."

The Indian government currently employs some 500,000 people, many of whom use Gmail for their primary email addresses. A quick glance at the contact page for the country's Department of Electronics and Information Technology reveals at least eight senior officials using Gmail, and still others with Yahoo! addresses.

Under the new directive, government employees will be asked to stick to official email addresses provided by India's National Informatics Centre (NIC). But an unnamed senior government IT official told the Times of India that many government workers choose Gmail and other foreign services because they are easier to use, and setting up accounts is much faster than working within the bureaucratic process of the NIC.

The move toward locally run email for Indian government workers comes in the wake of a string of revelations from documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Among the recent disclosures has been details of US electronic surveillance of foreign governments on US soil, where the National Security Agency even went as far as to snoop encrypted communications from United Nations headquarters in New York City.

No doubt equally concerning was a motion filed by Google in a US district court earlier this month, in which the Chocolate Factory asserted that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties" such as Gmail.

But Sunil Abraham of the Bangalore-based think tank the Centre for Internet and Society said that foreign spying wasn't the only reason why government officials should be required to use a homegrown email.

"Use of official government email would also make it easier to achieve greater transparency and anti-corruption initiatives," Abraham told the paper. "Ministers, intelligence and law enforcement officials should not be allowed to use alternate email providers under any circumstance."

When contacted for comment, a spokeswoman for Google India said the company had not been informed of the proposed ban, adding, "Nothing is documented so far, so for us, it is still speculation." ®

{% include back-to-top.html %} ## Context and Background This article appeared in late August 2013, at the height of global attention to the Snowden disclosures. The revelations, which had been emerging since June 2013, exposed extensive electronic surveillance activities by US intelligence agencies, raising concerns among many governments about the security of data held by major technology companies. For governments outside the United States, this raised acute questions about the security of official communications routed through US-headquartered platforms. India's proposed directive was part of a broader pattern of responses by non-US governments to the Snowden revelations, including Germany's efforts to build domestic email infrastructure and Brazil's decision to cancel a state visit by President Dilma Rousseff to Washington. The Indian government's own position was complicated by the fact that many officials were already relying heavily on Gmail, as The Register's review of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology contact page indicated. Sunil Abraham's quoted remarks reframe the issue in terms that go beyond the immediate surveillance concern. His argument is that official government email is necessary for transparency and anti-corruption purposes, and that ministers and intelligence officials should not be permitted to use private email services under any circumstances. The remarks reflect a policy argument that official government communications should remain within authorised institutional systems rather than private email providers. The quotes attributed to Abraham in this article were drawn from his comments to the *Times of India*, which The Register cites as the original source. ## External Link - [Read on The Register](https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/30/india_government_gmail_ban/)