Well aware of the surveillance capabilities of major companies in the sector, Africaโs heads of state try to make their phones as secure as Fort Knox. Every leader is geared up and takes extra precautions to prevent the ever-looming risk of being tapped. We take a look at the phones used by Africaโs presidents and politiciansโ practices.
In West Africa, some leaders have been won over by French technologies.
French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Franรงois Hollande used a Teorem, an ultra-secure clamshell phone with physical buttons created by Thales. However, using it requires a certain amount of patience, and Sarkozy hated it for that reason.
Recently, the French company acquired Ercom and added another jewel to its collection:ย CryptoSmart technology, developed in partnership with Samsung, which protects communications and mobile data. Emmanuel Macron uses the system, a fact that Ercomโs marketing department has not let go unnoticed. The Franceโs President has a Samsung Galaxy S7 with a touch screen, equipped with a tamper-proof encryption key and a data protection chip. Orange Cyberdรฉfense is behind this black box-like system, whose data can be destroyed remotely if the phone is lost or stolen.
Other political figures prefer to use cheaper alternatives such as Hoox, a phone developed by the French company Bull and later acquired by Atos (priced at around โฌ2,000 [$2,200]), Sectera Edge from US-based General Dynamics (priced at under โฌ3,000), BlackPhone, designed by US-based Silent Circle (priced at around โฌ550) and GranitePhone by Archos (priced at around โฌ800).
From texts to Telegram
BlackBerry products have also been a big hit in Africa, with Rwandaโs President Paul Kagame and Senegalโs President Macky Sall reportedly loyal users of the brand, just like Togoโs Faure Gnassingbรฉ, who was one of the first presidents in French-speaking Africa to communicate via text messaging some 15 years ago.
While Guineaโs Alpha Condรฉ, who never leaves the house without his three or four phones,ย made the switch from classic text messaging to WhatsApp and eventually to Telegram without a hitch, other heads of state from the pre-independence generation have opted for more โradicalโ solutions.
Cameroonโs Paul Biya, the Republic of Congoโs Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Maliโs Ibrahim Boubacar Keรฏta and Djiboutiโs Ismaรฏl Omar Guelleh can almost never be reached on their mobile phones, which they use very selectively.
Cรดte dโIvoireโs Alassane Ouattara puts his complete trust in an old Nokia model while also keeping an additional phone by his side. One of his close allies and former counterparts, Sarkozy, did the same during his presidential campaigns. Or maybe it was his alias, Paul Bismuth. . .
Backdoors
Just like these heads of state, most of the continentโs political figures have had to switch from one technology to another to shield themselves against prying ears. Over the past few years, conversations starting with โHello, can we talk?โ and ending with โYes, of course, but not on this lineโ have become extremely common in the African political scene.
Opposition members, thinking rightly or wrongly that their local phones are being tapped,ย have been using WhatsApp for a long time now. โItโs for security reasons,โ said one of them.
However, an expert we consulted smiled as he told us that this sense of security is an โillusion. Most governments have acquired technologies that are able to circumvent the appโs security protocols (Facebook bought it in 2014). Itโs more complicated than retrieving a traditional text message, but itโs doable. There are backdoor points of entry into the system.โ
More cunning than the others, a (very) senior official in Central Africa divulged his secret to us: he has switched to Telegram.
Created by Russian developers and today based out of Berlin, the app built its reputation around strict data encryption. As a result, quite a few political figures prefer it over WhatsApp. โThatโs bogus,โ said our expert, amused. โBoth apps have the notorious backdoors.โ
The alternative: Signal
Nevertheless, the most knowledgeable experts, i.e., those familiar with the security sector and spy games of every sort, are increasingly using Signal. Brought into the spotlight by the famous American whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the app was developed by Open Whisper Systems, a company from San Francisco which is entirely funded by donations and supported by the Signal Foundation, a non-profit organisation.
As our expert put it rather vividly: โWhatsApp and Telegram are like locked cars on the side of the road, whereas Signal is like an armoured car inside of a tunnel. Hackers can still get in, but itโs going to cost them a lot.โ
AFRICA REPORT
