Emirates - Digital Audit (Domain: Technology & Digital Supply Chain)

Target-Identity Note

This audit treats the target as Emirates airline / The Emirates Group (Dubai), wholly owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai ¹. A pre-scan hit for “Emirates Telecommunications Group Co PJSC” in a KLP exclusion list refers to a distinct entity (e&, formerly Etisalat) and is not treated as applying to this target ². Emirates NBD (a sibling entity under common ICD ownership) and flydubai (a separately-held ICD carrier) are legally distinct from The Emirates Group and are flagged as such wherever relevant ¹³⁴.

Enterprise Technology Stack & Vendor Relationships

Emirates Group’s documented digital-workplace stack is Microsoft-centric, spanning Microsoft 365, Teams, Azure, Power Platform, Power BI, Azure AD Conditional Access/MFA, Microsoft Cloud Application Security, and Windows Virtual Desktops, with no Israeli-origin vendor named in the primary case study ⁵. Emirates Group also maintains an AWS partnership focused on immersive, spatial-computing, and AI-driven “3D Web” initiatives, again with no Israeli-origin vendor identified ⁶. Israeli-founded cybersecurity firms Check Point and Wiz are active in the broader UAE market - Check Point partnered with AWS, Wiz, Radware, and TechBridge at GISEC 2025 in Dubai, and Wiz opened a Dubai data centre - but no public evidence identified of Emirates airline itself holding a licensing or subscription relationship with Check Point, Wiz, CyberArk, SentinelOne, NICE, Verint, Claroty, or Palo Alto Networks ⁷⁸⁹. Wiz’s own blog names Emirates NBD’s Group CISO as a customer reference, but Emirates NBD is a legally distinct bank under common Investment Corporation of Dubai ownership, not part of The Emirates Group, so this does not constitute an Emirates-airline finding ⁸¹. Mercator, formerly Emirates Group’s IT subsidiary providing airline reservation and revenue-accounting software, was divested by Dnata/Emirates Group to Warburg Pincus in 2019 and is no longer Emirates-Group-owned, with no Israeli-origin technology identified in its product set ¹⁰. No public evidence identified of Emirates naming a systems integrator or consultancy that mandated or deployed Israeli-origin technology.

Surveillance, Biometrics & Retail Technology

Emirates operates a biometric “Smart Tunnel” pathway at Dubai International Airport (DXB) in partnership with Dubai’s General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), with named technology vendors emaratech and Vision-Box ¹¹¹². In 2025, Emirates invested AED 85 million (~US$23.1 million) to deploy over 200 dual-height facial and iris-recognition cameras across Terminal 3 at DXB, covering check-in, immigration, lounges, and boarding gates, integrated with Emirates Skywards membership and the UAE GDRFA identity database ¹³¹¹¹². Vision-Box is headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, and was acquired by Spain’s Amadeus IT Group in April 2024, and is therefore not Israeli-origin ¹⁴. emaratech’s ownership was not disclosed on its own corporate page, and a claim of Investment Corporation of Dubai ownership could not be independently verified, but this does not bear on Israeli origin either way ¹⁵. No public evidence identified of Emirates using Trigo, BriefCam, AnyVision/Oosto, Trax, or any other named Israeli-origin biometric or retail-analytics vendor, and no public evidence identified of Israeli-origin predictive-policing, sentiment-analysis, or workforce-surveillance tools in use by Emirates.

Cloud Infrastructure, Data Residency & Sovereign Cloud Participation

Emirates’ cloud infrastructure runs on Microsoft Azure and AWS ⁵⁶. No public evidence identified of Emirates operating, leasing, or co-locating data-centre infrastructure within Israel, and no public evidence identified that Emirates’ specific workloads are hosted in or routed through an Israel-based Azure or AWS region, notwithstanding that both providers separately operate Israel-based cloud regions as part of their own global infrastructure. No public evidence identified of Emirates participation in Project Nimbus or any comparable Israeli government cloud initiative. Because Emirates functions as a cloud customer rather than an infrastructure or sovereignty-services provider, no public evidence identified of Emirates providing data-sovereignty, data-residency, or infrastructure-resilience services to Israeli state institutions or military bodies.

Defence, Intelligence & Security Sector Technology Relationships

Emirates has an ongoing, expanding commercial contract with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel’s principal state-owned aerospace and defense company, for passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion of Emirates’ Boeing 777-300ER aircraft ¹⁶. The deal was signed at the November 2021 Dubai Airshow, covering conversion of four Emirates 777-300ER passenger aircraft into 777-300ERSF freighters at Etihad Engineering’s Abu Dhabi facility under IAI license, and Israeli media explicitly characterized it as one of the first public defence-related deals between Israel and the UAE following the Abraham Accords ^1718192021. IAI CEO Boaz Levy and Emirates Chairman/CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum both publicly welcomed the partnership at signing ¹⁷²⁰. In August 2024, IAI announced expansion of the arrangement, establishing an additional freighter-conversion facility in Abu Dhabi to convert up to ten Emirates 777s ²². In December 2025, Emirates SkyCargo reported continued confidence in the 777F and 777-300 conversion order timeline ²³. In June 2026, Emirates SkyCargo took delivery of and placed into commercial service its first IAI-converted 777-300ERSF freighter (registration A6-EBK), flying Dubai–Hong Kong routes, confirming the relationship as ongoing and expanding well past the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion and the ICC’s November 2024 arrest warrants ²⁴²⁵. This programme sits within a broader AED 3.6 billion (~US$1 billion) Emirates cargo-capacity investment covering both new-build 777F freighters and 777-300ER conversions, though the exact contract value specific to the IAI agreement was not disclosed in available sources ²⁶²⁷. No public evidence identified of contracts, partnerships, or service agreements between Emirates and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, or Israeli intelligence agencies for administrative IT, communications infrastructure, data hosting, or analytics platforms. No public evidence identified of Emirates developing, selling, licensing, or maintaining offensive cyber capabilities, zero-day tools, or digital weapons systems.

AI, Algorithmic & Autonomous Systems

Emirates has announced a strategic AI collaboration with OpenAI (U.S.-based) to roll out ChatGPT Enterprise across the organization, and Emirates SkyCargo signed an MoU with LODD Autonomous (Abu Dhabi-based) for autonomous cargo drone development; neither partner is Israeli-origin. No public evidence identified of Emirates providing AI, machine-learning, computer-vision, or autonomous decision-support systems to Israeli state, military, or security bodies. No public evidence identified of Emirates’ AI models being trained on or given access to civilian-population data, intercepted communications, or surveillance-derived datasets originating from Israel or occupied territories. No public evidence identified of Emirates providing autonomous target-generation, automated threat-detection, or autonomous tracking systems to Israeli military or security forces.

Technology Ecosystem & R&D Footprint

No public evidence identified of Emirates operating R&D facilities, engineering offices, innovation labs, or accelerator programmes within Israel. No public evidence identified of Emirates acquiring any Israeli-origin technology company, and no public evidence identified of Emirates making direct strategic investments in Israeli technology startups or venture funds. A separate Abu Dhabi-government-owned carrier, Etihad Airways, joined an Israeli travel-tech accelerator (“OnBoard,” run by Arieli Capital), but Etihad is unrelated to Emirates or the Investment Corporation of Dubai and this finding is noted only to prevent misattribution ²⁸¹. No public evidence identified of significant patent portfolios, licensing agreements, or co-development arrangements between Emirates and Israeli-domiciled entities or research institutions such as Technion, Hebrew University, or the Weizmann Institute. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and CEO of Emirates Group and also Chairman of Dubai Airports, Dubai Holding, Dubai World, and Emirates NBD, has backed general UAE-focused venture vehicles, but no public evidence identified connecting his personal or family-office investments to Israeli surveillance, cyber, AI, SIGINT, or military-technology firms specifically ⁴.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Regulatory History

DAWN’s investigation into Israel-UAE surveillance-technology transfer under the Abraham Accords names NSO Group, Pegasus, DarkMatter, ToTok, and Unit 8200, but does not name Emirates, The Emirates Group, or dnata anywhere in the piece ²⁹. BDS Movement/PACBI called for a boycott of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2026, a Dubai cultural event sponsored by Emirates, citing UAE regime complicity in rights violations in Palestine, Sudan, and against migrant workers, on general political and normalization grounds rather than Emirates’ specific technology provision ³⁰. A claim circulated on an aggregator site that Emirates holds a codeshare agreement with El Al was checked and found to actually describe Qantas, not Emirates; this claim does not apply to Emirates and is not repeated as established fact ³¹. No public evidence identified of regulatory inquiries, legal challenges, export-control actions, or sanctions-related investigations involving Emirates’ technology sales or services to Israeli state entities. Separately, as background context on constructive-notice grounds rather than as a technology finding, Emirates suspended Tel Aviv passenger flights around October 2023, and subsequent reporting on resumption or permanent termination of the route is contradictory as of the most recent available sources (Haaretz, February 2026, reporting preparations to resume; Aviation A2Z, November 2025, reporting permanent termination), with current status unresolved ³²³³³⁴.