The Dark Alliance of UAE’s DarkMatter and Group 42 with China
Cyber technology has been one of the most crucial elements that sets United Arab Emirates — a federation seven sheikhdoms — apart from the other Gulf nations. However, the Gulf nation has most often not used its technological advancement wisely and committed acts that violated human rights and breached international law. This has included, state surveillance or spying of civilians, espionage on political rivals / activists, and journalists having critical stance against the Gulf nation. In mid-October 2020, the Arab nation came under fire for its UAE spy Covid tests kit donation to Nevada, which as per US intelligence agency were spying kits. Group 42, a cloud computing and AI technology firm played the most significant role in this donation, but it wasn’t the only Emirati firm linked to the controversial donations.
DarkMatter, which has been accused in the past for hiring intelligence analysts from the US to head a mass surveillance project called Project Raven, is the other name being linked to the faulty UAE Spy Covid tests kits donated to Nevada. The former members of Israeli defense forces were hired by DarkMatter were reportedly paid as much as $1million for the job. And were hired to target political rivals, human rights activists, and journalists with a critical stance against the nation.
In 2019, another Emirati firm Group 42, having links with DarkMatter, released its own instant messaging application called ToTok. A New York Times investigation revealed that the application was actually a spyware, used by the UAE government to track conversations, movement, appointment, relationship, image, sounds, from the mobiles phones having the software installed.
The CEO and founder of DarkMatter, Faisal al-Bannai, has defended the firm on multiple instances when posed with critical questions. However, Bannai agreed that the firm has had ties to the Emirati government and hired former members of the CIA and NSA analysts in one of the biggest espionage projects on global scale. Besides foreign government customers, Dubai police is one of the clients served by the organization, which has raised concerns over the repressive government’s misuse of the technology to snoop on its citizens, leading to human rights abuse against activists, dissidents, etc.
Therefore, when the US intelligence discovered that the rapid testing kits for coronavirus testing donated to Nevada came from the UAE-based firm Group 42, tied with another controversial firm, DarkMatter, red flags were raised over the kits and the intent behind the donation.
The ex-chairman of MGM — the Resorts tied with one of Dubai’s state-owned enterprises — Jim Murren who heads the Covid-19 Response, Relief and Recovery Task Force in Nevada, was hired by the Governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak. Murren was hired for both private and public partnership to gather funds and aid for the state of Nevada. In March, Murren forwarded the email he received from Group 42 CEO Peng Xiao to the governor’s office, pitching help from his company to the state. Peng has a history of operating a DarkMatter application based on big data, for collecting pool of surveillance data enough for tracking someone.
Murren said in his mail that the Emiratis were offering the donation “both as a public service and because they see this as a future investment opportunity for them.” “They have unlimited capital and would be incredibly flexible on terms- I will handle that part,” he added.
The first proposal of donation made by UAE spy Covid tests kits was to initiate the setup of a “turnkey” lab, for high-capacity processing of Covid-19 tests, rendering immediate results. What raised serious concerns was that not only was Group 42 ill-famed, but it was tied to two of the most ill-famed state-owned organizations — UAE’s DarkMatter and China’s BGI Group.
DarkMatter was scandalous for violating human rights in UAE via mass surveillance, while BGI Group was condemned for misusing the genetic data of Chinese people for identifying and further suppressing the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China. Two subsidiaries of the Chinese firm BGI Group has been sanctioned in the past by the US Commerce Department for the said reason.
Due to the controversial UAE spy Covid tests kit donation, the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi also indirectly refused an offer made by the Emirati government to carry out free of cost Covid-19 testing of its diplomats. The concerns about Chinese involvement with the notorious Emirati firm Group 42 was enough to raise fear amongst US diplomats. However, the decision wasn’t publicized keeping in mind the safety and security of the 5,000 American soldiers deployed in UAE.
