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Gujarat High Court Notifies a Techie who is Shut Out of Google

By Consultants Review Team Monday, 18 March 2024

A man's access to his email account was suspended for over a year after he uploaded a bare childhood photo to Google Drive, forcing him to approach the Gujarat High Court.

Google India Pvt Limited has been sent with a notice by the high court to block the petitioner's email account due to "explicit child abuse" after the petitioner uploaded a picture of his grandmother washing him when he was two years old to Google Drive.

Google and the federal, state, and local governments received warnings from Justice Vaibhavi D. Nanavati's court on March 15 that were due back on March 26. Neel Shukla, the petitioner, is a computer engineer who posted pictures of himself as a youngster being washed by his grandmother on Google Drive.

Due to Shukla's account being disabled by the tech giant in April of last year, his attorney Dipen Desai informed the court that the content showed "explicit child abuse" in violation of the company policy.

After the company's grievance redressal procedure failed to fix the matter, Shukla filed a motion with the high court on March 12, according to him.

Desai told the court that Shukla has lost business because he hasn't been able to read his emails since Google shut the email account.

"Google claims this amounts to 'explicit child abuse,' and they have blocked everything," the petitioner stated in his appeal. Everything is banned, therefore I can't access my email, which has an impact on my business."

Shukla had contacted the Department of Science and Technology at the Center, the Indian government's official body for such things, as well as the Gujarat police, but they had not taken any action, so he was obliged to pursue legal action.

In addition, the petitioner asked for an expedited hearing since he was notified by Google that the information associated with his account will be removed in April, one year after it was declared inoperative.

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