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Apple and Google Host Saudi App that Allows Men to Track Women and Restrict Travel

Danielle from Leaf and Core
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A man on the left shows something on an iPad to Apple CEO Tim Cook, center with arms crossed, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right.

Tim Cook, center, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Right. Photo: Saudi Embassy USA/Twitter

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) joined human rights critics in condemning Apple’s and Google’s decision to allow a Saudi Arabian app, Absher, on the App Store and Google Play Store. The app is an official Saudi Arabia government app, which allows users to fill out forms, obtain documents, pay traffic violations, and register vehicles and property. It’s essentially a mobile DMV. However, it also has an extremely sinister purpose you won’t find in a U.S. DMV. The Absher app facilitates the oppression of women in the country.

Saudi Arabia still has a discriminatory male guardianship system in place. Women do not have rights of their own under this system. Their rights are extensions of the rights of their male guardians. Until just last year, this meant that women did not even have the right to drive. Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system also requires a male guardian, often a family member or husband, to allow a woman to travel abroad, obtain a passport, work, drive, marry, access healthcare, or even get discharged from prison. The government could arrest a woman for challenging these laws and keep her indefinitely if she does not have a male guardian to facilitate her release.

Women only won this right in Summer of 2018. Photo: Faisal Al Nassar/REUTERS

This app, Absher, still available on both the App Store and Google Play, gives men the ability to exert their will over women. It allows them to track women, deny them release, health care, prevent them from traveling, and prevent them from obtaining any documentation. It turns women into prisoners, all from the screen of an iPhone.

And neither Apple nor Google have done anything about it, despite over a week of protest.

Criticism of the Saudi Absher App

Business Insider raised the issue last week, but it didn’t get appropriate attention until Senator Wyden, the Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International made public pleas to Apple and Google. According to these groups, Absher is the primary reason Saudi police catch women looking to flee abusive relationships and the oppressive Saudi regime.

“There’s a definite tragedy in the world’s most technologically progressive platforms, Apple and Google, facilitating the most archaic misogyny. What irony. In the West these technologies are used to improve lives and in Saudi Arabia they’re used to enforce gender apartheid.”

– Yasmine Mohammed

Apple and Google both make claims that they support diversity and women in STEM. It’s a twisted irony then, that the company still allows an app with such an oppressive feature. A main portion of this app is for the oppression of women, and it’s the main source of that oppression in Saudi Arabia.

“Even though the app is more general purpose, the government could simply remove the guardianship tracking functionality from the app, and continue to offer the rest of the functionality.”

– Rothna Begum, Human Rights Watch

Neither Apple nor Google have done anything to stop this horrific human rights abuse being carried out on their platform. iOS, Android, the App Store and Google Play store, currently host an app with a primary feature of oppressing women. I don’t think there’s a technology creator alive or dead who hoped their technology would one day be used to make people’s lives worse.

Apple and Google “Respond”

On last Tuesday, Tim Cook said Apple would “take a look at it.” Also, despite news of Absher having been out for a week at that point, Tim Cook still claimed he hadn’t heard about it in an interview with NPR. Apple’s CEO knows its company is facilitating horrific displays of sexism, they just don’t want to take the political action of doing something about it.

Apparently, women aren’t worth the effort.

Google hasn’t said anything yet. Despite repeated requests for comments, Google has remained silent. They may be waiting to see how Apple responds.

Tim Cook with the Saudi Crown Prince at Apple headquarters.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had all met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year. They helped Saudi Arabia in their attempts to appear a more modern regime. We don’t yet know whether or not this relationship has tainted Cook and Pichai’s ability to make the right decision on this app.

What Needs to be Done

A screenshot from the desktop version of the Absher app.

Apple doesn’t state how many users an app has, though Google says it has been downloaded over a million times. Saudi Arabia’s own government makes the claim that their mobile apps have over 11 million users. 11 million people use an app with a primary feature of oppression.

Imagine the message Apple and Google could send to these men by banning the oppressive features in the app. Imagine the message Apple and Google could send to a “reformer” like Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. They have an opportunity to make a real difference here. They may even be able to help push the movement to free women from this oppressive law once and for all.

Saudi Arabia can keep all other features of the app, but easily remove the only part that solely exists to oppress women. It’s an easy compromise, one that allows an otherwise useful app to continue serving the public and appeasing human rights advocates. Unfortunately, the ability to oppress women is a key feature for the app’s male users.

The lack of women in tech has once again tarnished the reputation of tech giants. I find it hard to believe that more women in decision making positions would not prevent such oppression. Imagine if this was an app for organizing racists or spreading hate speech. Imagine if this wasn’t just for oppressing women. Apple and Google would have acted immediately. So why does sexism get a pass from Apple and Google’s primarily male leadership?

I think we already know the answer to that one.

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