UAE Human Rights at Stake as Israeli Defense Joins Hands with Group 42

When several nations became the hotspot of Covid-19, they resorted to a containment technique of tracking patients via mobile applications. In early July 2020, the Israeli defense forces joined hands with United Arab Emirates to develop something similar. However, the collaboration happened between two of the most notorious nations in terms of state surveillance. The UAE spy tool developing firm, Group 42 is infamous for creating ToTok, while the Israeli government is ill-famed for NSO Group, which birthed the spy software, Pegasus.

Codename: Covid-19 Defense

An alleged ‘leading technology firm’ based in Abu Dhabi – the financial hub of UAE – Group 42, signed a Memoranda of Understanding with Rafael and IAI; the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, respectively.

Both the Israeli firms are known to be the leading ‘technology’ companies of Israel, which call the collaboration with the Emirati firm an attempt at researching and developing a solution to curb the spread of SARS-CoV2. The virus has put the world in a turmoil and has resulted in 62,626 and 58,913 cases in Israel and the United Arab Emirates, respectively as of 27 July 2020.

However, the collaboration done in the name of building ‘defense against coronavirus’, took place between two of the top abusers of human rights – UAE and Israel. Group 42 is a firm infamous for abusing human rights in UAE via a spy tool namely, ToTok. Meanwhile, NSO Group is known to have developed the Pegasus software, which it sold to some of the biggest repressive regimes across the globe, including Saudi Arabia, to silence critiques, dissidents, and journalists like Jamal Khashoggi.

Last year in December, the so-called ‘leading tech firm of Abu Dhabi’ – Group 42 – developed and launched an application, which was reported to be a spying tool. ToTok was launched as a free of cost calling and instant messaging application, even as the government of the United Arab Emirates restricts the use of VoIP in the region. Since its launch, millions of downloads had taken place, until several reports were released, claiming it to be a UAE state surveillance application that allows the government to track the conversations, movement, appointment, relations, sound, images, of anyone who installs the application.

The same UAE state surveillance application developing firm, Group 42, got back in action by signing an MoU with the Israeli defense force in the name of ‘tracking Covid-19 cases/patients’ and curbing the spread of the virus. The dark side to the collaboration is the fact that both the countries share an equally infamous history of abusing human rights and free speech with the use of technology.

UAE human rights has been jeopardized several times, including one time by the UAE state surveillance tool called ToTok. On the other hand, Pegasus has affected the entire world with its notoriety, including the alleged role in the death of a journalist like Saudi’s Jamal Khashoggi.

The toxic collaboration between the Israeli defense force and the UAE state surveillance tool developing firm, Group 42, couldn’t have been more evident. The coming together of the two would only contribute to the rise of UAE human rights abuse and silencing of dissidents.