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https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/popular-new-chat-app-totok-revealed-be-uae-spy-tool-reportPublished by: MIDDLE EAST EYE on 23 Dec 2019
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ToTok was billed as an easy way to chat by video or text, even in the United Arab Emirates, a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype. Turns out, it was something more, the New York Times reported. ToTok is actually a spying tool, according to US officialsfamiliar with a classified intelligence assessment and an NYT investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the UAE to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who have it on their phones.
Only recently introduced, ToTok was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While most users are in the Emirates, ToTok became one of the most downloaded social apps in the US last week, according to App Annie, a research firm.
ToTok is the latest escalation in a digital arms race among wealthy authoritarian governments [...]
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Who are Middle East Eye?Middle East Eye (MEE) is a United Kingdom-based media website and channel that primarily focuses on news related to the Middle East, North Africa, and the broader Muslim world.
What is Surveillance?Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, activities, or information for the purpose of influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information, such as Internet traffic. Surveillance is used by governments for intelligence gathering, prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or the investigation of crime. Surveillance can be viewed as a violation of privacy, and as such is often opposed by civil liberties activists.
What is Government?A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. Each government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy.
What is a Smartphone?Smartphones are a class of mobile phones and of multi-purpose mobile computing devices. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which facilitate wider software, internet (including web browsing over mobile broadband), and multimedia functionality (including music, video, cameras, and gaming), alongside core phone functions such as voice calls and text messaging. Smartphones typically include various sensors that can be leveraged by their software, such as a magnetometer, proximity sensors, barometer, gyroscope and accelerometer, and support wireless communications protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and satellite navigation.
What is UAE?United Arab Emirates (UAE), sometimes simply called the Emirates is a country in Western Asia at the northeast end of the Arabian Peninsula on the Persian Gulf. UAE borders Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south and west, as well as sharing maritime borders with Qatar to the west and Iran to the north. The sovereign constitutional monarchy is a federation of seven emirates consisting of Abu Dhabi (which serves as the capital), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain. Their boundaries are complex, with numerous enclaves within the various emirates. Each emirate is governed by a ruler; together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the rulers serves as the President of the United Arab Emirates. In 2013, the UAE's population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates.
