Fans travelling to Qatar for the World Cup have been warned to leave their mobile phones at home because of hacking fears.
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has become the latest figure to voice concerns and she believes that supporters should buy burner phones that they only use to talk to family.
Last week Qatar’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry announced that it would no longer be mandatory to install the Ehteraz contact tracing app - but visitors will still need it if they are to enter any health facility in Doha.
Fans must also register for a Hayya card, via a phone app, that acts as an entry permit both to the country and stadiums.
Speaking to the Newsagents podcast Kearns said: “I’d strongly advise fans to go out with a burner phone. Go and buy yourself a cheap phone because you need to download two apps to enter Qatar.
“They have done some looking into those apps and those apps they are asking you to download can take control of your device, make phone calls without giving you permission and stop your phone from going into sleep mode.
“It can access all the content in your phone including deleting things. For your safety I would encourage all fans to go out and buy a temporary phone and a temporary number and only use it to talk to your family while there.”
Kearns said that she has previously done the same in other countries, including visits to the United States, and added: “It’s about controlling who gets access to your information but if these apps are required for covid restrictions and we know how incredibly overreaching they are, people need to protect themselves.”
FIFA have not commented publicly about the use of the apps but there is a recognition that they are controlled by the state, which limits the amount of influence football’s governing body can have. From today travellers visiting Qatar will also no longer need a negative PCR or rapid antigen test to enter the country.
The Ehteraz app, in particular, has led to concerns being raised. In a recent investigation by the Norwegian outlet NRK, it was claimed that having Ehteraz on your device gives the state “complete control” over your phone and was akin to giving the state the “keys to your house.”
There are fewer but still significant concerns around the Hayya app, which records personal data and tracks location at all times. “They can simply change the contents of your entire phone and have full control over the information that is there,” the NRK security expert Oyvind Vasaasen said.
