Eye Police app intimidates the privacy of Lebanese citizens

The Lebanese Ministry of Information kicked off the Eye Police app on 12 June to improve public service delivery, by providing a platform for citizens to report issues directly to the pertinent ministries. Social Media Exchange (SMEX) reported that the app does not provide the necessary safeguards to user data. According to SMEX, ‘[o]nce users file complaints, the NNA allegedly publishes them on its website to give them greater visibility.’ Further threats include the requests for unnecessary permission to install Eye Police on Android devices which jeopardies the privacy of users. Moreover, the app allegedly requires users to submit personal data and stores it on unprotected servers that do not have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for data exchange.