Apple, Google pressured to drop Saudi app that lets men track and control women

Google and Apple are under pressure from human rights groups and a U.S. senator to remove from their stores an app called Absher. The app was created by the Saudi government and includes a feature that helps men monitor and control women who are under their guardianship, including wives and unmarried daughters.

Saudi men have this right thanks to the country's oppressive guardianship laws, which mandate every woman has a male guardian to make critical life decisions on her behalf. That guardian can be a father, brother, husband, or son, according to Human Rights Watch. So men get the power to approve things like whether a woman applies for a passport, studies abroad, travels outside the country, or gets married. That system was already well in place before Absher'’s debut, but the app makes controlling women much more efficient.

While Absher was released in 2015, it's prompted new scrutiny. One woman pursuing asylum recently indicated that she tried to flee the country without being detected by Absher and her male guardian. In order to travel, women must be granted permission through the app. Many can't make it far because the app alerts guardians every time their dependents use their passports, according to Insider.

Now human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, are urging Apple and Google to remove Absher from their app stores.

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"By permitting the app in your respective stores, your companies are making it easier for Saudi men to control their family members from the convenience of their smartphones and restrict their movement," Wyden wrote in a letter addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Cook replied vaguely when asked about the app during an NPR interview this week. "I haven't heard about it," he said. "But obviously we'll take a look at it if that's the case."

Google told CNN the company would be "looking into it."

Even if Google and Apple remove the app from their stores, it won't solve the problem of male guardianship. As columnist Mona Eltahawy pointed out on Twitter, the app simply "enables gender apartheid in #Saudi Arabia, remember that it is male guardianship that is the issue here."

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Still, activists believe Apple and Google could send a powerful message to the Saudi government by dropping Absher.

Hala Aldosari, an activist and scholar who studies gender in the Arab Gulf states, told the New York Times: "If the tech companies would say, 'You are being oppressive,' that would mean a lot."