Material we support

We accept all kinds of files - including documents, photos, videos, and audio recordings - with political, economic or ethical significance, in accordance with the Transparency Unit's mission statement. We do not accept rumor, opinion, other kinds of first hand accounts or material that is publicly available elsewhere. This is because our journalists write news stories based on the material, and then provide a link to the supporting documentation to prove our stories are true. It’s not news if it has been publicly available elsewhere first, and we are a news organisation. However, from time to time, the editors may re-publish material that has been made public previously elsewhere if the information is in the public interest but did not have proper news analysis when first released.

Submitting files

At the moment, our anonoymous electronic drop box is unavailable while we re-engineer improvements to both make the service more secure and more user-friendly. We recommend that you emailtransparency@aljazeera.net until we've completed our improvements. Further, we highly recommend you encrypt submitted files and email using PGP encryption software with our Public Key (Key ID 0x41CE6275). This will guarantee Al Jazeera Transparency Unit will be the only party allowed to view the submitted files and email.

We also recommend that you use the Tor network to add an extra layer of security. Tor is "anonymizing" software: It makes it more difficult to trace your internet activities. (Note that the previous link might be blocked in some countries, so you may have to search for a mirror site that's accessible from your location.)

We recognize that - despite the best technology - our readers and viewers are taking a risk by submitting materials, particularly those living in countries where such disclosures are not protected by law. Our journalists will ensure that the identities of our sources are protected, and that submissions are scrubbed of sensitive information - like the "metadata" that contains authoring information - before those submissions are released to the public.