mass surveillance equipment capable of monitoring social networks

the government is trying to acquire mass surveillance equipment capable of monitoring social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

While being billed as a way to monitor social media in order to “monitor security hazards in social networks” and “identify persons representing a danger on society”ip camera wireless ip camera (sic), past and recent actions by the Egyptian government demonstrate that democracy activists, political dissidents, and journalists are likely to be targeted. Just this week, prominent democracy activist and writer Alaa Abd El Fattah was sentenced to 15 years on trumped up charges for “illegal protesting and attacking a police officer.” Fattah, who has been jailed repeatedly for his activism, was arrested outside a Cairo courtroom after being prevented from attending his own trial and sentenced in absentia.

Given the crackdown that has occurred under ex-army chief and now President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, it is frightening that the government will possess a surveillance system with the ability to monitor individuals, groups and organisations on social media around the clock. 4ch NVR System While the White House has asked Sisi to carry out human rights reforms, U.S. and European governments must also cease the export of the Western-built tools that enable human right violations in Egypt.

The Social Networks Security Hazard Monitoring System

The copy of a call for tenders, leaked to the government-tied media outlet El Watan, asked for surveillance companies to submit plans for building an open source intelligence system called the “Social Networks Security Hazard Monitoring system”. The purpose of this system is to “conduct wide searches on various networks to find everything that is a violation of the law, the spreading of destructive ideas that help spreading chaos, tensions and corruption in society.”

In the document, the Ministry of Interior lays out what these “destructive ideas” are:

…blasphemy and skepticism in religions; regional, religious, racial, and class divisions; spreading of rumors and intentional twisting of facts; throwing accusations; libel; sarcasm; using inappropriate words; calling for the departure of societal pillars; encouraging extremism, violence and dissent; inviting demonstrations, sit-ins and illegal strikes; pornography, looseness,  and lack of morality; educating methods surveillance camera security systems of making explosives and assault, chaos and riot tactics; calling for normalizing relations with enemies and circumventing the state's strategy in this regard; fishing for honest mistakes, hunting flesh; taking statements out of context; and spreading hoaxes and claims of miracles.”

The document specifically asks that the system have the ability to analyse and monitor Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but says that it would be a plus if the provider could offer support on “more social networks (Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, Viber, Whatsapp...).”

Turning social media in intelligence resource

The proposal details the government’s plan to implement a broad and systematic approach to open source intelligence gathering, turning social media in Egypt into an intelligence resource for the authorities. The government’s tender document shows that it is seeking to:

identify what the current and past “hot topics” are for the region and who is accessing content related to these topics;
identify who the influential actors are in every region and how do they interact with others;network camera surveillance system
analyse opinions and trends inside social networks;
assess the evolution of a person’s opinions by looking at current and old posts and their development through time; and
search for “keywords that constitute a violation of the law and public moral, or that do not fit into norms and societal ties”
The government is also seeking to allow analysts to create an “unlimited number” of user accounts to interact with social media users, which would allow them to actively infiltrate and interfere with groups. According the to document, this is so authorities can be 16ch NVR Recorder“able to communicate and interact with aware and zealot young people to monitor destructive ideas spreading on social networks, and consider how to refute and confront them.”