Doha, Qatar - In July 2012, Al Jazeera Media Network was approached by Google Ideas to collaborate on a project on Syria using data and visualisation tools.

This resulted in our data journalists and technologists working together with teams from Google to produce Tracking Syria's Defectors, published in 2012.

Al Jazeera works regularly with technology giants to come up with innovative ways to present information, facts and stories to our audiences, and this project was one example.

Al Jazeera is proud of the journalism behind the project, especially because it was - and still is - difficult for journalists to get solid information out of Syria.

Our researchers worked with organisations around the world to present the most accurate information about the people who had defected from the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the time.

In no way was Al Jazeera directly or indirectly involved in the dialogue between Google and the US state department in relation to this project and the motives behind it.

More on Al Jazeera's in-depth coverage of Syria's Civil War