To fight the spread of the coronavirus, Israel has taken an emergency measure allowing the internal security service to collect data on citizens "immediately", said Shin Beth on Tuesday.
Outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he would approve "emergency rules that will allow the use of digital technologies in the war against the coronavirus", after a parliamentary committee failed to fire green but postponed his vote on the matter.
Virus carriers and people in quarantine located
The government "authorized the Shin Beth to put its advanced technologies at the service of the national effort," the internal security service reported on Tuesday in a statement. This measure has an "immediate" effect, said a spokesman for Shin Beth. According to details of the measure, which leaked in the Israeli press, the police will be able to obtain the location of carriers of the coronavirus and of people in quarantine via telephone operators without authorization from the courts.
The Shin Beth will be able to use the location of the patients over a period of 14 days preceding their diagnosis in order to "identify their routes and the people with whom they came into contact", according to these details. According to a latest report from the Israeli Ministry of Health, 304 people have been infected and tens of thousands more are confined.
Secret surveillance techniques
The security service was contacted by the Ministry of Health to help locate the carriers of the virus "after it was found that the other authorities did not have the necessary technology," said its chief Nadav Argaman. "The Shin Beth knows that this mission goes beyond its usual counterterrorism activities, so the request has been studied with the attorney general and approved by him," he added in the press release, adding that surveillance mechanisms had been put in place. square.
Benjamin Netanyahu's office refused to specify which surveillance techniques would be used. The data will be passed on to the Ministry of Health and will not be saved by the Shin Beth, said Nadav Argaman. "There will be no massive intrusion into the phones and there will be no cyber attacks," said a security official on Monday. Benjamin Netanyahu, head of a transitional government for a year, had proposed this measure a few days before his rival Benny Gantz was appointed to form a new ministerial team.
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- Benyamin netanyahu
- Collection
- Personal data
- Israel
- Coronavirus
- World