High Court: No security agency coronavirus track of public without legislation

Justices say extension of emergency measures permitting Shin Bet to gather cell phone location data of those diagnosed can only be extended if work starts on enshrining it in law.

Over the past few weeks, the internal security agency has been working with the Health Ministry in a controversial program to retrace the movements of coronavirus patients by making use of the masses of phone and credit card data at its disposal, which it generally is only permitted to utilize for counterterrorism.

Under the government’s public regulations, the security service is not permitted to continue using the data after the program ends, though the Health Ministry is allowed to use the information for an additional 60 days for research purposes, presumably to retrace the path of the outbreak.

The tracking, which uses cellphone location data, credit card purchase data and other digital information, aims to alert and order into quarantine people who were within two meters, for 10 minutes or more, of someone infected with the virus within the past two weeks.