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Unavailability of Uber’s Anonymized Calling Feature in Lebanon Puts Riders At Risk
In Lebanon, Uber still makes it possible for drivers and riders to find out each ...
With Its Government’s Blessing, a French Company Has Sold Spying Tools to Egypt
The administration of Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi bought surveillance technologies from the French cybersecurity company Ercom in 2014, according to a report published on March 26 by the French weekly magazine Télérama. The purchase, which was approved by the French government, increases threats to Egyptians’ rights to private communications and correspondence, and puts the […]
Uber Ordered to Stop Operations in Egypt, Its Largest and Fastest-Growing Middle East Market
Almost exactly one month after Uber suspended its services in Morocco, an administrative court has ordered Uber and Careem, the Emirati ridesharing service, to do the same in Egypt. The case began in 2016 when 42 Egyptian taxi drivers claimed that ride-hailing services violated Article 32 of the Traffic Law, which dictates that operators of […]
Two New MENA-Region Exploits Demonstrate the Desire for Information Control
The discovery of the Dark Caracal surveillance scheme in Lebanon earlier this year put the world on notice that states in the MENA region are developing significant digital surveillance and information control capacities of their own. Now new exploits in Turkey and Egypt have been revealed. According to “Bad Traffic,” a new report from […]
A Busy Week for Information Control in Egypt: Fake News Hotlines and Apparently the Government Is Building the New Facebook?
On Monday, multiple agencies within the Egyptian government announced pernicious, albeit unconventional, methods of information control ahead of this weekend’s elections, in which current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is effectively running uncontested. The public prosecution unveiled the phone numbers of regional hotlines which citizens can use to report “fake news,” making use of the term […]