The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet appears to have been denounced to Saudi authorities through a crime-reporting app that users in the kingdom can download to Apple and Android phones. A review of Leeds PhD student Salma al-Shehab’s tweets and interactions shows she was messaged by a person using a Saudi account on 15 November, 2020 after she posted a mildly critical tweet in response to a Saudi government post about a new public transportation contract. The user told Shehab that he had reported her on the Saudi app, which is called Kollona Amn, or We Are All Security. It is not clear whether the Saudi officials responded directly to the report, but the 34-year-old mother was arrested two months later. Bethany Al-Haidari, the Saudi case manager at the Freedom Initiative, a US-based human rights group, said Saudi Arabia had used technology to violate human rights and track targets of the government for decades. “Now we see Kollona Amn may be connected to the detention of a women’s rights defender. Technology has a wonderful power to transform and develop a society. However, in the hands of a dictatorship targeting human rights defenders, technology transforms into a terrifying tool which fast tracks repression, and the consequences are grave,” she said. A friend of Shehab’s in the UK said they were worried that she had been targeted by the government because she was a PhD student. The friend, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted themselves, said Shehab would regularly tweet to support the rights of others but believed it went unnoticed because she did not have many Twitter followers. “She [would] always stand with all human rights in Saudi or outside of Saudi. She has a very kind personality and you cannot see her without a lovely smile on her face.” The person said Shehab, who has been studying in the UK since 2017, was not especially critical of the government and was a supporter of Vision 2030, Prince Mohammed’s plan to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil and towards services such as health and tourism. The person said: “She was happy with small steps towards women’s rights, like driving.” The Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn said he was “shocked” to read about Shehab’s case and he would be raising the issue of her sentence with the government. “She should be freed to return to her small children and husband, and to her studies in Leeds,” he said.