Human rights group demands Kuwait and Bahrain stop their COVID-19 contact tracing app over privacy concerns
According to Reuters, Amnesty International calls Kuwait and Bahrain to stop using “highly invasive” COVID-19 apps which violate the privacy of hundreds of thousands of people by tracking them almost in real time. Amnesty’s Security Lab reviewed contact tracing apps from Europe, Middle East and North Africa, including a detailed technical analysis of 11 apps in Algeria, Bahrain, France, Iceland, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Norway, Qatar, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates, some of which ranged from bad to dangerous for human rights. Bahrain’s ‘BeAware Bahrain’, Kuwait’s ‘Shlonik’ and Norway’s ‘Smittestopp’ apps stood out as among the most alarming mass surveillance tools assessed by Amnesty, with all three actively carrying out live or near-live tracking of users’ locations by frequently uploading GPS coordinates to a central server.
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