Google, Apple remove popular UAE app after reports of spying

Google and Apple removed a popular mobile application developed in the United Arab Emirates claiming that the app was used for state spying. The Emirati ToTok is a messaging app used for chatting via video or text, not to be confused with China’s TikTok which is a video-sharing app.

According to a report by the New York Times, ToTok was used as a spy tool by the UAE government, following which Google and Apple decided to remove the application from their app store. The report claimed that the messaging platform is providing government-backed agencies access to chats, movements and other private information. It also said that the app's publisher, Breej Holding Ltd, is related to an Abu Dhabi-based intelligence firm.

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Increasing popularity

ToTok said that it is “temporarily unavailable” on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store and will back soon after resolving the “technical issue”. Though the app has been removed from the stores, Android and iOS users with an already-installed ToTok app will be able to use it. It can also be downloaded from the app stores of mobile companies such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo.

"While the existing ToTok users continue to enjoy our service without interruption, we would like to inform our new users that we are well engaged with Google and Apple to address the issue," ToTok said in a blog.

The application, only a few months old, has been downloaded more than five million times on Google play store alone and was one of the most downloaded messaging apps in the US last week.

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A security firm Objective-See, in a blog post, said that they were approached by the New York Times to assist with the investigation into ToTok after Ameican officials familiar with classified intelligence determined that it was a spying tool. The firm said that the application is “really the genius of the whole mass surveillance operation: no exploits, no backdoors, no malware...” Though ToTok, in its privacy policy claims to share data with ‘group companies’, it has not mentioned the UAE government. 

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