The surveillance dilemma
The Egyptian government wants urban transport platforms such as Uber or Careem to set up their servers within the country and share their real-time data with state security, allowing one of the region’s most repressive regimes access to vital information about people, their habits, etc.
The Egyptian government’s drift toward cyber-surveillance following the so-called Arab Spring has been relentless: the creation by decree of a High Council for Cyber Security, dedicated in theory to monitoring internet security but actually dedicated to blocking activism and political dissent, has raised alarms after it began gathering data on the location and movement of the entire population by monitoring their smartphones through the telecommunications companies, as well as their social networks activities. Networks and services such as Facebook’s Free Basics have been blocked in the country for refusing to hand over information to the government, which justifies its efforts on the basis of an alleged need to “do what governments in other countries do.”
For Uber, which is struggling for expansion in the region against competitors such as Careem, founded in Dubai by two former McKinsey consultants and that has significant stakes from Saudi Telecom or Rakuten, Egypt, with its population of 93 million people, very few of whom own cars, is a fundamental market. But giving a regime involved in repressive activities access to real-time information about people’s movements would be a first for the company, and potentially damage its reputation. Like many governments in the West, Egypt’s military regime knows full well that surveillance of this type does nothing to prevent terrorists from planning attacks, who can always find other ways to communicate with each other, and instead is a way to monitor the entire population, in keeping with its authoritarian approach.
Regardless of what Uber does or does not do in this case, comparing Egypt’s military rulers with Theresa May, who is on record as saying that security must come before human rights, provides an appropriate context for what should be acceptable and unacceptable in a democracy. Surveillance is one of the most pressing issues for our societies in an age characterized by communications technology: while some politicians and many voters continue to think that the more data governments have about what people are doing the better, and that our security services should be able to use any and all cybercrime tools, the truth is that this only allows for monitoring of the part of the population with no intention of carrying out an attack, while those who do, in most cases, are able to remain anonymous. Tests by machine-learning experts seem to show that preventing terrorism can be done just as effectively using the most basic data about the population: instead of cyber-surveillance and big brother, a little analysis and common sense can go a long way.
In short, spying on the entire population is not the best way to stop the terrorists. Egypt’s regime, one of the most repressive on the planet and that has locked up thousands of activists and bloggers, is not a model to follow. And yet, leaders like Theresa May and others in the West, eager to be seen to be doing something about terrorism, want to take us down the same road.
(En español, aquí)
