RESPONDING TO COVID-19: UAE mass surveillance called into question

Experts believe the UAE has one of the highest per-capita concentrations of surveillance cameras in the world. From the streets of the capital of Abu Dhabi to the tourist attractions of skyscraper-studded Dubai, the cameras keep track of the license plates and faces of those passing by them.

While heralded as a safety measure in a country so far spared from a major militant attack, it also offers its authoritarian government means to track any sign of dissent. “There is no protection of civil liberties because there are no civil liberties,” said Jodi Vittori, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies the UAE. Dubai and Emirati government officials did not comment.

The UAE’s surveillance state can offer the parlor trick of finding your car at the massive, multi-storey parking garage of Mall of the Emirates, home to an indoor ski slope. But multiplied across the cameras watching public spaces, buses, the driverless Metro, roadways, gas stations and even all the emirate’s more than 10,000 taxi cabs, authorities in effect can track people in real time across Dubai. Police also gain access to surveillance footage from state-linked developers and other buildings.

A decade ago, Dubai proved those cameras could be quickly used. After the Jan 19, 2010 assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel, police quickly pieced together the some three-dozen suspected Israeli Mossad operatives who carried out the killing. They later showed video beginning from the operatives’ arrival at the airport to their trailing of al-Mabhouh while dressed as tennis players. State-linked media at the time suggested some 25,000 cameras watched Dubai. Today, cameras are far more sophisticated and far more prevalent. Technology as well has made the tracking even easier.

Since late 2016, Dubai police have partnered with an affiliate of the Abu Dhabi-based firm DarkMatter to use its Pegasus “big data” application to pool hours of surveillance video to track anyone in the emirate. DarkMatter’s hiring of former CIA and National Security Agency analysts has raised concerns, especially as the UAE has harassed and imprisoned human rights activists.

In the run-up to the pandemic, Dubai police launched a new surveillance camera programme powered by AI called “Oyoon,” or “Eyes” in Arabic. Police described the project in January 2018 as a means to “prevent crime, reduce traffic accident related deaths, prevent any negative incidents in residential, commercial and vital areas and to be able to respond to incidents even before they get reported.” The “Oyoon” project included police partnering with government and semi-government businesses that already had a vast network of surveillance cameras.

In May, Dubai police Brig Khalid al-Razooqi said the “Oyoon” system would begin checking temperatures of those passing by, as well as making sure people maintain a social distance of 6 feet from each other. Outside of “Oyoon” cameras, Dubai police also are experimenting with thermal helmet cameras for officers to check passers-by’s temperatures. Malls and other business have implemented a variety of thermal image scanners. At Dubai Airport, those coming in walk past a thermal scanner that also checks people for masks. Dubai’s Silicon Oasis neighbourhood similarly has been tracking passers-by with cameras.

Similar technology has been used at the Mall of the Emirates, run by the private firm Majid Al Futtaim. Companies building so-called “disinfection gates,” which fog chemicals on people, similarly use thermal cameras that also can record and upload their data. Nothing prevents these additional cameras and their data from being fed into wider facial recognition databases in the city-state. The UAE already has such a database from its national ID card system, which residents use for fast immigration clearance at Dubai International Airport.

Associated Press