ToTok, a popular Middle Eastern messaging app launched earlier this year, is actually a mass-surveillance tool, according to a report today from the New York Times.

Pitched as a secure alternative to services such as WhatsApp and Skype, ToTok found a willing audience in the millions. But it’s said to have been designed to enable tracking conversations, movements, relationships and even sounds and images of those who use it on their phone by the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Getting solid numbers on how many times it has been downloaded is difficult, since the app was taken down from Google Play and the Apple App Store at around the same time the Times article went live. Appgroves, a site that tracks app popularity, has it listed as having 5 million-plus downloads, with a rating of 4.6 out of five stars rating in more than 87,000 reviews. The earliest reviews on the site date to August, with a common review theme being that it works in countries where other popular messaging apps are blocked.

The Times reported that after being downloaded millions of times by users specifically in the Emirates, it had started to take off elsewhere before being taken down, surging to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the U.S. last week.

The company behind ToTok, Breej Holdings, is claimed to be a front company for DarkMatter Group, an Abu Dhabi-based cybersecurity firm run by UAE intelligence officials along with former U.S. National Security Agency and Israeli military operatives. Websites approved by DarkMatter were blacklisted by Google LLC in August after it was reported that the company was involved in hacking operations.

The claims leveled against ToTok by the New York Times involve unnamed “American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment” but concrete proof wasn’t provided. Neither the UAE Government, Breej, DarkMatter, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Bureau of Investigation have commented as of the time of writing.

Stories of nefarious spying and hacking from countries in the region are not unusual, Iran being regularly in the news. But it’s notable that the UAE is a close U.S. ally, so it will be interesting to see how the U.S. government responds.

Image: ToTok