Shin Bet says surveillance program has so far identified 500 virus carriers

The Shin Bet security service says its controversial mass surveillance program has so far helped identify 500 coronavirus patients.

It says the 500 identified as having been in contact with coronavirus carriers through cellphone tracking and other means were tested and found positive for the disease. This, it says, proves the necessity of this tracking effort, despite deep concerns over violations of personal privacy and a lack of parliamentary oversight.

“Without quickly finding them and putting them into quarantine, they surely would have unknowingly infected many more people,” the Shin Bet says in a statement.

Over the past two weeks, the internal security agency has been working with the Health Ministry to retrace the movements of coronavirus patients by using the masses of phone and credit card data at its disposal, which it generally is not permitted to utilize for reasons besides counterterrorism.

The security service does not say how many people in total it identified as having been in contact with a confirmed coronavirus carrier, only the 500 cases of them that also tested positive for the disease.

— Judah Ari Gross