Saudis use app to control women’s travel

The Saudi government app Absher is mostly a way for people to pay traffic fines and complete other administrative tasks electronically. But one feature isn’t sitting well with civil-rights advocates: the ability for men to grant or deny a woman permission to travel.

Regardless of their age, women in Saudi Arabia must have the consent of a male relative to obtain a passport, travel or marry. In the past, a travel permit was a paper document issued by the Interior Ministry and signed by a male relative. The Absher app replaces the need for a paper document.

The app is merely implementing existing laws, and removing it would not change or remove the guardianship rules. Nonetheless, the feature has sparked calls for leading tech companies to block access through their app stores.

“The ingenuity of American technology companies should not be perverted to violate the human rights of Saudi women,” U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier wrote in a letter to Apple and Google.

According to Speier’s office, Google won’t remove the app because it doesn’t consider it a violation of Google’s terms of service, while Apple is still investigating.

Google and Apple declined to comment. Apple CEO Tim Cook told NPR last month that the company would “take a look” at the app.

The app includes a setting where Saudi men can grant or deny their spouses, daughters and minor sons permission to travel abroad. Through an integrated system, immigration officials at the airport can see the status of a woman’s travel permit by scanning her passport details.

At one time, Saudi men were also being notified by text messages when dependents exited and entered Saudi Arabia, though Absher officials quoted in Saudi media say that those text messages were not sent through Absher and this texting service stopped in 2014. Nonetheless, some published reports say the texts are still available.

Absher was created in 2007 and can also be accessed through a website, so removing the app would not remove men’s ability to electronically grant or deny travel permission to women. Although the app and its travel feature has been around for years, it has only recently become a focus of intense criticism by women’s rights activists and other critics.