State comptroller criticizes government use of Shin Bet to track COVID patients

1 December 2021, 4:01 pm

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State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman attends a press conference in Jerusalem announcing an investigation into the Mount Meron tragedy on May 3, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman criticizes the government approval of Shin Bet tracking to identify and locate people who could be infected with the Omicron COVID variant.

“It’s very important to me that even in a time of a pandemic, Israel and all countries around the world protect privacy rights and act carefully, appropriately and quickly,” he says at a conference. Englman adds that he published a report a year ago which focused on “the shortcomings regarding the efficacy of such tracking.”

The state comptroller says there were multiple instances where the tracking was incorrect “and many people were sent into quarantine unnecessarily.”