Israel plans to use anti-terrorism tracking technology and a partial shutdown of its economy to minimise the risk of coronavirus transmission, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.
Cyber tech monitoring would be deployed to locate people who have been in contact with those carrying the virus, subject to cabinet approval, Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.
“We will very soon begin using technology … digital means that we have been using in order to fight terrorism,” Netanyahu said.
He said he had requested Justice Ministry approval because such measures could infringe patients’ privacy.
In an escalation of precautionary measures, Netanyahu’s government announced that malls, hotels, restaurants and theatres will shut down from Sunday, and said employees should not go to their workplaces unless it was necessary.
However vital services, pharmacies, supermarkets and banks would continue to operate.
Health officials urged people to maintain social distancing, and not to gather more than 10 people in a room.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, confirmed that it was examining the use of its technological capabilities to fight coronavirus, at the request of Netanyahu and the Health Ministry.
Avner Pinchuk, a privacy expert with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said such capabilities could include real-time tracking of infected persons’ mobile phones to spot quarantine breaches and backtracking through meta-data to figure out where they had been and who they had contacted.
Read the article by Maayan Lubell in the Shepparton News and Warrnambool Standard.