Is Egypt spying via its ‘Weaponised app’ on COP27 delegates’ phones?
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Sulaiman
- . November 12, 2022
- . Update: November 12, 2022 8:26 pm
An official smartphone app that apparently has full authority to track movements, private conversations, and photos has sparked cybersecurity worries at the United Nations’ COP27 climate negotiations.
The two-week long climate conference in Egypt is projected to draw some 35,000 attendees, and more than 10,000 people have downloaded the app from Google Play, including government representatives from France, Germany, and Canada.
The software was created by Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for summit attendees.
Although it is intended to help attendees navigate the event easily, David Bader, a cybersecurity and data science expert, told Al Jazeera that “the government of Egypt may have weaponized the app and now has the power to surveil all of the summit attendees.”
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The COP27 programme, according to analysts, has the ability to read users’ emails and encrypted messages, record phone conversations, and even scan the entire device for sensitive data. It can also be used to track users’ whereabouts and communications in great detail.
The developer claims that the app does not collect data, but as Bader pointed out, “Surprisingly the app does have the strange ability to access the user’s name, phone number, and email address, as well as all of the user’s email with the ridiculous explanation for “app functionality,” and one’s photos for “account management.”
“Would you want a stranger, much less a foreign government, to have access to your personal photos?,” Bader cautioned that there might be other covert activity involving the app.
According to Kevin Curran, a cybersecurity expert at Ulster University, the majority of apps seek permission to access different components of a smartphone, such as the location for GPS features or the camera for social media.
The COP27 app is “very intrusive,” according to Curran, who questioned whether each of these permissions is required.
“It is challenging to find a smoking gun in this instance. We are unable to determine whether this is being used by the Egyptian authorities for data collection, Curran told Al Jazeera.
