Amaya Toman Two sisters from Saudi Arabia are calling on Apple and Google to pull the government's Absher app from their App Stores. This allows family members to monitor the movements and activities of female relatives. Sisters Maha and Wafa al-Subaie, who are currently seeking asylum in Georgia, say many girls remain trapped in abusive families because of the application.
According to 25-year-old Wafa, the Absher app gives men the ability to take control of women, and insists that Google and Apple must remove it from their app stores. In order to successfully escape, Wafa and her sister had to steal their father's phone, log into the Absher app and use it to grant themselves permission to travel to Istanbul.
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Absher is a service provided free of charge by the Ministry of Interior, and the app can be downloaded from the Saudi versions of the Google and Apple online stores. The app allows men to grant permission to women in their family to travel abroad – or to prohibit them from doing so. Thanks to the application, the user then receives SMS notifications about whether the monitored woman has used her passport. Tim Cook was alerted to the app's existence - in February of this year he said he hadn't heard of it, but that he would "look into it".
Absher provides access to a wide range of government services, such as renewing a passport, making appointments or tracking traffic violations. When women in Saudi Arabia want to work, get married, or travel, they need permission from a male family member. The aforementioned al-Subaieva sisters said that they themselves know dozens of young women who want to run away from their families.
If both tech giants manage to get the app removed, it could be a significant step towards positive change. "If the app is removed, maybe the government will do something," Wafa hopes. Human rights groups, diplomats, and European and American politicians are also calling for the app to be removed.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has begun implementing partial reforms, such as lifting a ban on women driving, and indicated last year that he would like to end the guardianship system. But he soon began to lose support.
According to Amnesty International's Lynn Maalouf, the number of women trying to leave Saudi Arabia is increasing because of the desperate situation.
Source: Standard
A lot of kids, Apple virtue signaling is only beginning to end. In other words, we love all our feminist friends, but we love Islam even more. You'll get used to it, lefties, you'll always be useful idiots.
Well, that's obstinacy.
If Apple or Google doesn't have a problem with this, then I don't have a problem with restricting basic rights and freedoms.
So, some time in crime would help them clear their minds.
But it remains unpleasant...
You definitely can't equate it. It's just a modification of Apple's Find My Friend app. The fact that some pimp goat interprets it that way does not mean that it is also true. It is also possible that he only suffers from scurvy. Unfortunately, the management of many companies is very weak to send such fools somewhere, and I prefer to apologize immediately and download products, applications....