Israel’s Internal Security Agency to Track Virus Patients
Israel Approves 30-Day Tech Tracking of Coronavirus Carriers
(Bloomberg) --
Israel approved the use of tracking technology developed to combat terrorism to retrace the movements of coronavirus patients and people they’ve encountered, a controversial step in the country’s fight against the fast-spreading illness.
Critics say the use of this location technology, so far limited to 30 days, constitutes a dangerous precedent and an invasion of Israeli citizens’ privacy. The measure was authorized just hours before the country was put on a near-lockdown on Tuesday, with citizens instructed to stay at home unless going out for essential errands or work.
The cabinet debated the use of this technology for six hours, placing “strict oversight” over the tools “to ensure that they would not be abused,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday night.
“These means will greatly assist us in locating patients and thereby stop the spread of the virus,” Netanyahu said. Israel has 324 confirmed cases, with no deaths. The number of people in quarantine will increase, “possibly by large numbers,” after Israel begins implementing this tracking platform, Netanyahu said Tuesday night.
Israel’s internal security agency, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym Shin Bet, will monitor the mobile phones of coronavirus patients to track their movements. It will send text messages to people who came in contact with them instructing them to go into quarantine or be tested for the illness. The agency will have the cellular data of all Israeli citizens.
It’s long been known that Israel has collected data from mobile phone companies to track people for counterterrorism purposes. But the technology whose use was approved on Monday can also sift through masses of data to pinpoint not only people who are being tracked, but also those they may have come in contact with, the Ynet website said.
Lawmakers sworn in at the seating of parliament on Monday did not debate the plan. It was authorized at a time when the prime minister -- still operating in a caretaker capacity after three inconclusive elections -- and his allies are taking unilateral steps in response to the virus’s spread, including restrictions on court activities that led to the postponement of Netanyahu’s corruption trial, due to begin on March 17.
Sensitive Matter
“The sensitivity of the matter is very clear to me,” Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman said in a statement. Only a “very limited group” of agents will have access to the data and it will not be stored in the agency’s database, he added. Until now, Israeli authorities have relied on patients’ accounts of their whereabouts.
Bringing in a government surveillance agency sets Israel “on a slippery slope,” tweeted Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, head of the democracy in the information age program at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research center in Jerusalem. “You can find this data in other ways.” Other countries have employed private companies to supply information.
While much of the country has been ordered to stay home, essential services like supermarkets, pharmacies and banks continue to operate as normal. Israel plans to mobilize 2,500 more reserves soldiers to help the Home Front deal with the virus.
Restrictions on Palestinians entering the country to work will be tightened beginning on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. About 100,000 Palestinians work in Israel and Jewish West Bank settlements, their wages a major contributor to the Palestinian economy.
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