The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has voted to freeze legislation that would have allowed police to use phone tracking technology to enforce quarantine orders, lawmakers say.
“After a series of serious discussions in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the panel has decided not to okay a digital tracking bill, which was presented by the government. The panel has proven it is not a rubber stamp (like ministers),” Yesh Atid-Telem MK Moshe Ya’alon says in a tweet.
Israel Police wearing protective clothing seen in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem to arrest a man diagnosed with the coronavirus who broke quarantine orders April 6, 2020. (Israel Police)
Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked, whose party is in the caretaker government, also backs the decision.
“The police carry out thousands of home visits to those who need to be in quarantine, and so the benefit is outweighed by the harm to privacy,” she writes on Twitter.
The law would have given police permission to use GPS data to enforce home isolation orders for those who came in contact with a coronavirus carrier or who were abroad in the previous two weeks.
Police had been using the phone tracking for enforcement under emergency regulations that expire at midnight.
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