Apr 27, 2020

Israel’s domestic security agency can no longer surveil people’s phones to fight the coronavirus, the country’s Supreme Court ruled Sunday. The Shin Bet must now stop using phone-surveillance technology until parliament passes laws to regulate the practice, The Associated Press reported.

The Shin Bet was tracking and surveilling people’s phones to identify people exposed to the coronavirus. People who were found to be in contact with an infected individual then had to go into quarantine, according to AP.

The Cabinet of Israel’s new unity government voted earlier this month to allow the internal spy service to access private cellphone data of citizens via an emergency order. The government called it necessary and the Shin Bet said the information would only be used to fight the pandemic. The agency worked with the Health Ministry to identify at-risk people, according to The Times of Israel.

The court’s decision came after petitions against the program, according to the Israeli news outlet Haaretz. The court gave parliament until Thursday to enact legislation pertaining to the practice, AP reported.

Many Israeli rights groups have criticized the Shin Bet’s use of cellphone data to fight COVID-19.