Google, Apple under fire for hosting Saudi app that lets men track women

Google and Apple are in hot water for hosting an app aimed for Saudi Arabia that lets men track women and prevent them from leaving the country.

The two tech giants Google and Apple have been accused of enforcing ‘gender apartheid’ in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by hosting an app that allows men to track women and their whereabouts, reported Business Insider.

The app named ‘Absher’ was downloaded over one million times and incorporates some harmless features like being able to pay a parking fine or renewing driving permits. However, it also includes few features that have led the tech giants to come under fire for making the app available on Google Play Store and App Store.

The rule for women in Saudi Arabia includes a woman following the guardianship laws, through which they must gain consent by their male guardians to do everything from school enrollment to paid employment.

Through the app, men can input a woman’s name and passport number. They can then decide how many trips a woman can take, how long they can travel for and if to cancel a woman’s permission to travel. If a woman deviates from her approved travel profile, the guardian gets real-time SMS alerts that detail the women’s travel, explained Android Authority.

The app’s travel features have infuriated activist and human right groups that call out to the app’s alert system as one of the key reasons why women trying to flee the country are caught. They also claim that the Absher facilitates human right abuses that go against Apple and Google’s app policies.

In statements sent to Business Insider, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a women’s rights activist called on the tech firms to reconsider hosting Absher on their respective app stores as it has limited women’s freedom. They also blamed the firms of facilitating misogyny and helping ‘enforce gender apartheid’.

Moreover, both Apple and Google did not respond to the publication’s requests for comment.