by DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — At the United Nations COP28 climate summit in Dubai, surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere. And that has some worried.
It is unclear how the United Arab Emirates, an autocratic federation of seven sheikhs, uses the images it collects from its extensive network. However, the country has already implemented facial recognition at the immigration gates of Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel.
Surveillance cameras are increasingly part of modern life. However, experts believe that the United Arab Emirates has one of the highest per capita concentrations of such cameras on Earth, allowing authorities to potentially track a visitor during their trip to a country without the protections of civil liberty of Western nations.
“We’ve just assumed at every point in this conference that someone is watching, someone is listening,” said Joey Shea, a Human Rights Watch researcher specializing in the Emirates. She and other activists operate under the assumption that it is impossible to have a private conversation while attending COP28.
The cameras belong to an Emirati company that has faced accusations of espionage for its links to a mobile phone application identified as spyware. The company has also faced accusations that it may have secretly collected genetic material from Americans for the Chinese government.
That company, Presight, is a spun-off arm of Abu Dhabi company G42, overseen by the country’s powerful national security adviser. More than 12,000 of the company’s cameras survey the nearly 4.5 square kilometers (1.7 square miles) that make up Dubai Expo City, including cameras with the G42 and Presight logos positioned above multiple entrances at the summit’s Media Center.
G42, also known as Group 42, and Presight did not respond to a request for comment.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Emirati committee organizing COP28 said an agreement between the U.N. climate arm and the United Arab Emirates government requires that only the U.N. Department of Security have access to the data. of security cameras in the Blue Zone, a large area where delegates negotiate, smaller meetings between non-governmental organizations take place and journalists work.
“The safety of all participants, including media representatives, visitors and staff, along with the privacy of their data, is of utmost importance to us all,” the committee said in a statement. “Any suggestions or accusations of privacy violations and misuse of personal information are unfounded.”
Images of the summit’s Green Zone, open to the general public, along with the rest of the city-state, remain entirely in the hands of the Emirati security services.
Presight, which recently made an initial public offering on the Abu Dhabi stock market, reached a $52 million deal with Dubai Expo 2020 to install surveillance equipment at the site before hosting the world’s fair, documents show. of the company. Presight’s marketing materials describe that the company’s system “easily tracked and traced millions of people and vehicles” during that event and “identified and prevented thousands of incidents.”
There were “zero cases of physical assault or attacks on visitors – 100% safe,” Presight said.
At COP28, an AP journalist counted at least six cameras in the Media Center with G42 and Presight logos, some pointed at work spaces. Others sat outside along the route of a protest Saturday where about 500 people demonstrated.
On Sunday, activists largely refused to speak publicly about surveillance in the United Arab Emirates. Some have been carefully turning over their identification cards when participating in protests or have tried to avoid having their photographs taken.
Marta Schaaf, director of climate, economic and social justice and corporate responsibility at Amnesty International, told the AP that the seemingly omnipresent surveillance in the United Arab Emirates created an “environment of fear and tension.” She described it as more insidious than COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. , Egypt, where suspected members of the security service stood listening to conversations and openly taking photographs of activists.
“Last year we saw very visible bullying,” Schaaf said. “This year everything is much more clever. “That leaves people wondering and a little paranoid.”
The Emirates’ vast network of surveillance cameras first made the news in 2010. Dubai police then quickly pieced together footage showing three dozen suspected agents of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, some dressed as tennis players , who assassinated Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel. hotel.
Since then, the number and sophistication of cameras has increased. In late 2016, Dubai Police partnered with a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based company DarkMatter to use its “big data” app Pegasus to aggregate hours of surveillance video to track anyone in the emirate. . DarkMatter hired former CIA and National Security Agency analysts, raising concerns, especially as the United Arab Emirates has harassed and imprisoned human rights activists.
In 2021, three former US military and intelligence officials admitted to providing sophisticated hacking technology to the United Arab Emirates while working at DarkMatter. They agreed to pay nearly $1.7 million to resolve the criminal charges.
The defendants in the United Arab Emirates accessed at least one of the so-called “zero-click” exploits, which can enter mobile devices without any user interaction. This despite the fact that DarkMatter had claimed for years that it did not launch offensive cyberattacks.
When DarkMatter disappeared due to the attention, some of its staff joined the G42. Among them was G42 CEO Peng Xiao, who for years ran DarkMatter’s Pegasus program. G42 corporate documents list Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the country’s national security advisor, as one of the company’s directors.
G42 was behind voice and video calling app ToTok, which allowed users to make internet calls that have long been banned in the UAE. The United States and experts warned that it was a likely espionage tool, which the app’s co-creator denied.
G42 also partnered during the pandemic with Chinese company BGI Group, which is the world’s largest genetic sequencing company that had expanded its reach during the crisis and was looking to offer services to Nevada. The state ultimately rejected the offer after warnings from federal officials, the AP reported at the time.
The United States, which has some 3,500 troops based in the United Arab Emirates and has long served as its security guarantor, has increasingly expressed concerns about the country’s ties with China. This has even caused some pressure on the G42. Xiao told The Financial Times this week that his company would cut ties with Chinese hardware suppliers due to concerns from US partners such as Microsoft and OpenAI as it ramps up its artificial intelligence business.
“For better or worse, as a trading company, we are in a position where we have to make a decision,” Xiao told the newspaper. “We cannot work with both parties. We can not”.
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