French newspaper exposes UAE's tight surveillance policy

The French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique revealed that the United Arab Emirates has pioneered the extensive use of surveillance technology to keep tabs on its own citizens. 

Data is being collected and also analysed on a massive and unprecedented scale, making people fear nothing they say or write is truly private, the paper reads.

‘Abu Dhabi feared the Arab Spring uprisings would spread, and used the threat of religious extremism as an excuse to tighten security and legitimise repression,' said one academic to the paper.

'It was the Arab Spring that contributed the most to the government’s determination to monitor and repress those it considered ‘internal enemies’.

‘2011 was a turning point in security terms — a brutal one,’ one of the academics who had asked for anonymity recalled. ‘Abu Dhabi feared the Arab Spring uprisings would spread, and used the threat of religious extremism as an excuse to tighten security and legitimise repression.’