PHNOM PENH: Cambodian President Hun Sen has backed a country-made messaging application as an alternative to WhatsApp. Critics of the application say that this way the government will be able to monitor the political discourse in the country.
The former prime minister wrote on his official Facebook page, “Cool App will make it difficult for foreigners to intercept our information.”
He further wrote that this is the first Cambodian program and will be used in the Cambodian security sphere. Other countries have their own communication channels, such as China’s WeChat, Vietnam’s Zalo, South Korea’s KakaoTalk, and Russia’s Telegram. So we have our own product in Cambodia.
Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest-serving rulers, has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades. Although his eldest son Hun Manet succeeded him as prime minister last year, he still holds all the power in the ruling party.
CoolApp founder and CEO Lim Shevotha said the app has been downloaded over 150,000 times and is not monitoring, collecting or storing user data. The app is using end-to-end encryption to keep data secure.
