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Spotlight on Scandinavia After Danish BAE Subsidiary Sells Spyware to UAE

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Not long after the UAE made world news for attempting to hack into a smartphone belonging to activist Ahmed Mansoor, its emerged that the Middle Eastern government has purchased surveillance equipment from a Danish subsidiary of British defense contractor BAE.

​According to Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information, papers from the Danish Business Authority reveal export licenses for BAE Systems Applied Intelligence A/S, giving the UK defense contractor the go ahead to sell "IP monitoring and data analysis system relating to national security and the investigation of serious crimes," to the United Arab Emirates government.

The new license is for "extension service, support, testing and maintenance," suggesting that BAE Systems have already delivered a spy system to the UAE.

According to documents obtained by Lasse Skou Anderson of Dagbladet Information, the Danish Business Authority's ongoing contract between UK defense group, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence A/S and the UAE dates back to December 2014. 

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Despite the UAE government receiving condemnation from humanitarian organizations around the world for monitoring, imprisoning and torturing its critics, authorities in Denmark have allowed a Denmark-based company to supply the UAE with an "IP monitoring and data analysis" for "serious crime" and "national security" investigations.

This could range from mapping a target's social media network and stealing all personal communications data from a device such as a smartphone, using voice recordings, videos, text messages and attachments as a source of information.

A statement written by BAE Systems and republished by The Intercept and numerous other websites said:

"It is against our policy to comment on contracts with specific countries or customers. BAE Systems works for a number of organizations around the world, within the regulatory frameworks of all relevant countries and within our own responsible trading principles." 

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Anderson, the journalist who obtained the documents in Denmark was told by the Danish Business Authority that it found no issue approving the export license to the UAE, despite European Commission regulations enforced in October 2014 to control exports of spyware and Internet surveillance equipment that could compromise human rights. The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Anderson it saw no reason to deny the application.

Human Rights Watch states that the UAE "…often uses its affluence to mask the government's serious human rights problems."

"The [UAE] government arbitrarily detains, and in some cases forcibly disappears, individuals who criticized the authorities, and its security forces face allegations of torturing detainees."

The revelations behind the BAE Systems deal between Denmark and the UAE follows shortly on from the disclosure by Citizen Lab that human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, was targeted using the most advanced surveillance hacking techniques on the market made by Israeli software company NSO Group to install spyware onto his smartphone.

Amnesty International told Dagbladet Information: "The authorities should take their job more seriously when it comes to the export of surveillance for countries that systematically use technology to suppress lawyers, journalists and human rights activists."

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