  We consider a free photon field in $D$-dimensional de Sitter space, and
construct its propagator in the general covariant gauge. Canonical quantization
is employed to define the system starting from the classical theory. This
guarantees that the propagator satisfies both the equation of motion and
subsidiary conditions descending from gauge invariance and gauge fixing. We
first construct the propagator as a sum-over-modes in momentum space, carefully
accounting for symmetry properties of the state. We then derive the position
space propagator in a covariant representation, that is our main result. Our
conclusions disagree with previous results as we find that the position space
photon propagator necessarily breaks de Sitter symmetry, except in the exact
transverse gauge limit.
