It can show the bus route or update the weather. However, technology experts and human rights organizations claim that the Egyptian mobile phone app for the Conference UN per Climate COP27 has a very insidious dimension as it can be used to spy on delegates to track their conversations, messages and emails.

“It’s a spy tool,” said Frans Hibert-Wier, head of UBCOM, a Swiss cybersecurity firm that conducted a technical review of the app.

“This is an opportunity for the government to collect and update all this data from all these people for free, without any effort, within two weeks,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview from Paris.

The annex lists climate-specific speaking dates and speaker profiles. It also asks for a username, email address, mobile phone number, nationality, and passport number, and requires location tracking to be enabled.

The app has been downloaded more than 10,000 times on the Google Play store, which corresponds to almost one in three registered at the UN Climate Conference in the Red Sea resort.

But cybersecurity experts say the app can also be used to eavesdrop on conversations, read private emails and track texts — surveillance they say many Egyptians often face.

Due to growing concern over the app, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology did not respond to a request for comment from the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

However, Egypt’s special envoy, at a conference attended by representatives of almost 200 countries, said that there was nothing reprehensible or hidden in this.

“There was a cybersecurity assessment and it completely refuted it,” said Wael Abulbad, Egypt’s special envoy for COP27, denying that the app poses a security risk.

According to the Associated Press, the United Nations is also investigating allegations of misconduct by Egyptian police officers securing the talks.

Egypt repeatedly faced questions about the human rights situation during the presidency of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former commander-in-chief of the Egyptian military.

Human rights groups say political dissent is being suppressed and tens of thousands have been imprisoned. COP27 was also overshadowed by the case of Alaa Abdel Fattah, an imprisoned Egyptian activist who went on a hunger strike to protest his detention and prison conditions.

Advocating caution, some Western governments have urged their officials not to even download the online app, Politico reports, amid fears the app could be used to hack into their emails, read their texts or eavesdrop on delegates’ private conversations.

The UN Climate Conference was attended by over 90 heads of state, as well as thousands of journalists, activists and business leaders.

“Everyone should be concerned” about the surveillance issue at COP27, said Tony Roberts, a member of the African Digital Rights Network lobby group.

Egypt, after all, according to Roberts, knows the “art” of state surveillance, he said, citing multiple internet shutdowns, censorship of online content and frequent crackdowns on dissent.

“The mandatory collection of detailed personal information and mandatory location tracking on the COP27 mobile app is a blatant breach of privacy,” he said via email.

Emails, text messages and voice chats are at risk

Mobile phone applications are often used at large events to inform attendees, share information, and keep people safe. But applications can also be misused.

The Covid-19 tracking app for this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics contained flaws that could leak participants’ data, whether it be passport details or medical history, said Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based cybersecurity watchdog.

China said its app was mainly used to monitor the health of participants and that it follows strict regulations to protect their data.

European regulators have also said that apps developed by Qatar for the World Cup may pose a privacy risk.

Egypt’s COP27 app is not mandatory for delegation members, but is advertised on the conference website as the official government app providing “delegate-centric services”.

“The app will be by your side every step of the way, from your arrival in Egypt to your departure,” the app’s description on the UN website says.

According to Ibert-Vier, the app can access the user’s calendar, camera, microphone, and contacts and collect more data than necessary.

“Your entire system can be read by this app,” he said. He added that encrypted files are an exception.

Marwa Fatafta, policy manager for the Middle East and North Africa at Access Now’s digital rights group, said she saw the app’s technical analysis and called it “highly intrusive.”

“It requires excessive permissions that are unnecessary and disproportionate to its intended function, such as access to the user’s camera, microphone, GPS location, email, and user accounts for apps like WhatsApp,” he said.

“There is no reason why the Egyptian authorities need such intrusive access to people visiting COP27.”

Aqua, an African activist who attended the conference and asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said she was surprised at the number of licenses the app was asking for.

She immediately downloaded it to access the agenda and transport schedule, then deleted it to protect her privacy.

“I was worried that the (Egyptian) authorities were using this app to track me down,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Oluatosin Ogunsola, a Nigerian businessman, said he did not download the COP27 app.

“Participants are concerned that so much data is required,” he said. “I downloaded another transportation app that didn’t need that much data.”

Monitoring status

Ahead of the UN Climate Conference, Egypt also said all taxis in Sharm el-Sheikh must be equipped with cameras, which Human Rights Watch said allows security to monitor drivers and passengers at COP27.

The local governor told Egyptian TV that the cameras were only installed to check how drivers behave and to make sure they are paying the right taxi prices.

On Sunday, Germany’s federal police warned the German delegation at COP27 that its members could be targeted by Egyptian intelligence agencies, Reuters reported.

Police spoke of “overt and covert surveillance through photographs and video” by Egyptian agents, Reuters notes.

Few human rights groups or privacy advocates are surprised.

“When an international conference is held in a police state, this is what happens,” Adam Koogle of Human Rights Watch said, referring to the massive participation in COP27.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}