Tech

Those attending the Qatar World Cup will have to jump through the hoop of state ‘spyware’

The next World Cup is expected to be the most curious. Bought for petrodollars by the absolute monarchy of Qatar, it will not only be unusual because of the location and the date, chosen to avoid impossible temperatures; or, as happened in the Olympic Games in China, for being held with the approval of the world’s great democracies in a country that does not respect human rights: furthermore, it will be especially delicate for those who venture to attend the event .

As reported in different media throughout the globe, those attending the FIFA World Cup will be forced to install a couple of apps on their phones with a different purpose or, actively and passively, with a different excuse, but with the same secondary effect: that of being spied on by the Qatari authorities. On the one hand, with the purpose or excuse of assistance and on the other, of the wild card that does not fail, that of the control of covid-19.

A) Yes, Have now is the official application of the World Cup, used among many other things for attendees to track tickets, or to access the Qatar metro for free. And then there’s Ehteraz, the covid-19 tracking application with which to control the potential explosion of contagions, given the scenario of overcrowding that is expected once the championship has begun. Of course, it is in both cases of applications on which the experts do not anticipate anything good.

Qatar 2022

Hayya, for example, requests permission to connect to the network and to determine the location of the terminal, as well as transmitting all the data collected through an unsecured connection to a remote location where they will remain as long as those responsible wish, since it is not possible to claim its removal. All this is specified in the app’s privacy policy. Hayya will be a de facto mandatory installation, as it will be used to manage tickets to matches.

Ehteraz goes further and in addition to permissions to connect to the network (including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with priority over other applications) and to determine the location, will be able to access the contents of the mobile, that is, write permissions with which to read, erase or alter the information stored in the terminal, while at the same time preventing the device from going to sleep. Ehteraz will also be a mandatory installation, this one due to the control of the covid-19 pandemic.

It sounds bad? It’s probably much worse, and it is that all that is known about these applications is because it has been published by the developer entities, the Ministry of the Interior in the case of Ehteraz and the organizing committee of the World Cup in that of Hayya. So one can only imagine what they will do that they have not said. In both cases, however, they are applications available -and, therefore, approved- in the App and Play Store of Apple and Google, respectively.

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