Co-creator defends ToTok, a suspected UAE spying app
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The co-creator of a video and voice calling an app suspected of being a spying tool of the United Arab Emirates defended his work in an interview with the Associated Press and denied knowing that people and companies linked to the project had ties to the country’s intelligence apparatus.
Millions downloaded the ToTok app during the several months it was offered in the Apple and Google stores. Co-founder Giacomo Ziani described the popularity as a sign of users’ trust despite a longtime ban in the UAE on such apps.
He denied that the company collected conversation data, saying the software demanded the same access to devices as other common communication apps.
Emirati authorities insisted they “prohibit any kind of data breach and unlawful interception.”
But this federation of seven sheikhdoms ruled by hereditary leaders already conducts mass surveillance and has been internationally criticized for targeting activists, journalists and others.
Ziani repeatedly said he knew nothing about that, nor had any knowledge that a firm invested in ToTok included staff with ties to an Emirati security firm scrutinized abroad for hiring former CIA and National Security Agency staffers.
He also said he did not know about ties a computer researcher says link companies involved with ToTok to Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirates’ national security adviser.
ToTok surged to popularity by allowing users to make internet calls long banned in the UAE, a U.S.-allied nation on the Arabian Peninsula that is home to Dubai.
Ziani said ToTok won rapid approval from the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, something long sought by the established competitors that remain banned. By installing the app, users agreed to allow access to their mobile device’s microphone, pictures, location information and other data invaluable to intelligence agencies.
ToTok described itself on Apple as coming from developer Breej Holding Ltd. and on Google as being from ToTok Pte., a Singapore-based firm. Both ToTok and Breej Holding Ltd. had been registered in a publicly accessible online database of companies operating out of the Abu Dhabi
Global Market, an economic free zone set up in the Emirati capital.
After suspicions emerged about ToTok, records of the two firms no longer appeared online. Following an inquiry about the firms from an AP journalist, their information reappeared Tuesday in the database.
Information from the database shows ToTok’s sole registered shareholder as Group 42, a new Abu Dhabi firm that describes itself as an artificial intelligence and cloud-computing company. G42’s CEO is Peng Xiao, who for years ran Pegasus, a subsidiary of DarkMatter, the Emirati security firm under scrutiny for hiring former CIA and NSA staffers, as well as others from Israel. But the company told AP in a statement: “G42 has no connection to DarkMatter, whatsoever.”