Why the government should monitor its citizens using technology Student’s Name Institution of Learning

Introduction The idea that the government of the UAE and GULF region should monitor its citizens using technology has been the subject of debate in recent times. Most citizens are concerned about their privacy and freedom of speech, which are been challenged by this issue. United Nations treaty about global monitoring was rejected at the issue was debated for two weeks at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) conference in Dubai (Tassi, 2014). This allows the national government to have control over the internet and monitor the activities of citizens. However, the current presentation convinces my audience that monitoring the activities of citizens of the UAE and GULF region is beneficial to the national government.

A Brief Background Considering the values and attitudes of the citizens, especially the young Emirates citizens, monitoring every of their moves when using their gadgets such as laptops, tablets, phones, etc. as shown in Figure 1, is a great challenge to their privacy and freedom of speech. Since as citizens they entitled to the human rights, and embarking on such a project by the national government will deny them of such rights. However, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are subject to a round-the-clock monitoring by dedicated electronic patrol teams. The team is tasked with detecting and tracking all materials and topics that are sent on these websites. Any violation detected on these websites are punishable as in the real world (AlSadafy, 2012).

Figure 1: An Internet user

Reasons Why It Will Benefit the Government To protect against terrorism- The government needs to monitor the internet in order to be informed about any plan to terrorize the country or any part of it. To protect the young against immoral behaviour from external parties- The government needs to monitor online activities of its citizens, especially children and teenagers in order not to fall victims of immoral behaviour that are carried out via the internet such as the transfer of pornographic contents (OpenNet Initiative 2009).

Reasons Why It Will Benefit the Government cont. To protect citizens against internet fraud- The government needs to monitor the activities of its citizens in order to keep track of online transactions. To protect citizens against sexual harassments- monitoring the online activities of its citizens, especially children and teenagers helps in checking sexual abuses that have been initiated via the internet. It also helps to monitor the political affairs of the country such as mocking the countries rulers (Agencies, 2012).

Reasons Why It Will Benefit the Government cont. For domestic surveillance- Monitoring the activities of the citizens of the UAE helps in predicting and preventing any future occurrence of crisis, strikes, protests, gang activities and other juvenile delinquencies (Jones, 2010). Also, monitoring online activities of citizens helps the government of UAE to watch against the transmission of contents that are offensive to the religious belief of its citizens. This happens because any transfer of such content might result in religious instability.

Figure 2: Internet Monitoring Team

The Technology Used to Monitor Citizens Internet censorship technology is used for monitoring and filtering the activities of citizens by the OpenNet Initiative. Example is show in Figure 2. This technology can be developed and enacted through different strategies such as technical blocking, search results removal, and induced self-censorship (OpenNet Iniative, n.d.). Filtering can be done at any or all four nodes in the following networks: Internet backbone, internet service providers, institutions and on individual computers (OpenNet Iniative, n.d.).

Conclusion Monitoring the online activities of citizens in UAE has been a challenging issue to many citizens of UAE since its initiation by the government. Based on the privacy and freedom of speech of its citizens, there has been a lot of debate concerning the adoption of this system. This monitoring is carried out using the internet censorship technology by the OpenNet Initiative. However, this is done to protect citizens against terrorism, internet fraud, immoral behaviours, for domestic surveillance and against contents that violate their religious belief.

References Agencies. (2012). UAE adopts stricter online monitoring. Arab News. Retrieved from http://www.arabnews.com/uae-adopts-stricter-online-monitoring Al Sadafy, M. (2012). Dubai police monitoring social networking sites round the clock. Emirates24/7. Jones, S. (2010). Global dispatches: UAE- a guide for internet use in the UAE. The Epoch Time. OpenNet Initiative. (n.d.). About filtering. Retrieved from https://opennet.net/about-filtering OpenNet Initiative. (n.d.). United Arab Emirates. Retrieved from https://opennet.net/research/profiles/uae Tassi, P. (2014). The internet will stay free from government control with UN treaty blocked. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/12/14/the-internet-will-stay-free-from-government-control-with-un-treaty-blocked/ THANK YOU!