"In its ruling, the court said it feared the mobile phone tracing, imposed as a temporary emergency measure, was slowly becoming permanent. It gave the government until March 14 to end indiscriminate use of the surveillance and limit it to confirmed coronavirus carriers who refuse epidemiological questioning"
ADM systems and the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel
Rolling updates on automated decision-making systems deployed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel. News items are displayed in reverse chronological order.
With New COVID Policy, Israel Redefines What It Means to Be Vaccinated (Haaretz, Oct 2021)
“Israel became on Sunday the first country in the world to no longer provide its vaccination certificate, known locally as the Green Pass, to citizens who had received their second vaccine dose more than six months ago”
All COVID Passes in Israel Are About to Be Declared Invalid. Here's How to Get a New One (Haaretz, Sep 2021)
"Because of the effectiveness of the third dose and the decrease in effectiveness of the first two doses, the Health Ministry has decided that only people who have received the third dose will be eligible for the Green Pass as of Sunday"
Knesset advances bill to allow quarantine monitoring via app (The Times of Israel, Sep 2021)
"The bill is meant to replace the electronic bracelet initiative, which did not see much success. It will enable location tracking of anyone required to quarantine — due to contact with a coronavirus carrier or returning from abroad. It will notify authorities of any potential breaking of quarantine, as well as allow them to hold video calls with individuals to ensure they are isolating"
Gov't approves 'Heskemon' app to enforce COVID quarantine (The Jerusalem Post, Aug 2021)
"The app is only for those in quarantine who own smartphones and agree to use the app"
New restrictions set in - will Israel go into lockdown? (The Jerusalem Post, Aug 2021)
Starting August 8, the full green pass system will be in place again (from August 20 also for children under 12) (...) Currently, the green pass outline, which grants access to venues and activities only to people who are fully vaccinated, recovered or who underwent a coronavirus test in the previous 72 hours, applies only to gatherings with more than 100 people. The full system will apply to several activities regardless of the number of participants.
Israel to reimpose COVID health pass as Delta variant hits (Al Jazeera, Jul 2021)
""In a further tightening of measures, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office said on Thursday the Green Pass programme would be back in force from July 29, pending government approval. “The (Green Pass) will apply to cultural and sporting events, gyms, restaurants and dining halls, conferences, tourist attractions and houses of worship,” Bennett’s office said in a statement after a meeting of his “coronavirus cabinet”. Entrance to events with more than 100 attendees will be allowed only for “the vaccinated, recovered and those with a negative test result who are aged 12 and over”"
Israeli Supreme Court bans unlimited COVID-19 mobile phone tracking (Reuters, Mar 2021)
Knesset okays electronic bracelet for returnees from abroad (The Jerusalem Post, Mar 2021)
"All Israelis returning from abroad can be required to wear an electronic bracelet to ensure that they isolate at home, or be quarantined in a hotel, according to a bill approved by the Knesset"
Vaccination 'passports' may open society, but inequity looms (AP, Feb 2021)
"Anyone unwilling or unable to get the jabs that confer immunity will be “left behind,” said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein (…) Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday passed a law allowing the Health Ministry to disclose information on people who have yet to be vaccinated. Under the policy, names can be released to the ministries of education, labor, social affairs and social services, as well as local governments, "with the purpose of allowing these bodies to encourage people to get vaccinated.""
Green pass: how are Covid vaccine passports working for Israel? (The Guardian, Feb 2021)
"(...) most of the several million Palestinians living under Israel’s control in the occupied territories will have to wait. That disparity will be made even sharper as more and more Israelis enjoy green passes while Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza spend further weeks, if not months, under strict pandemic restrictions"
Protesters demonstrate against vaccine coercion, green passports in Tel Aviv (The Jerusalem Post, Feb 2021)
"The protesters demanded that the government (...) cancel the green passport initiative, which they say leads to a two-tier system within Israeli society: a privileged "vaccinated class" and a lower class of those who can't get the vaccine, or don't want to. One large sign held by members of the crowd read "apartheid" in English and Hebrew in bold next to a green passport. Another large sign equated green passports with the tattooed arms of former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners"
Thousands reportedly attempt to obtain easily forged vaccinated certificate (The Times of Israel, Feb 2021)
"A black market for counterfeit vaccination certificates is already thriving on Telegram, where more than 100,000 users have joined groups that offer the forgeries at a price, Channel 12 reported."
Despite Warnings, Anyone Can Still Fake Israel’s Coronavirus Vaccination Certification (Haaretz, Feb 2021)
"Over a week after a fatal flaw was exposed, the official document proving you’ve been vaccinated against coronavirus can still be easily faked"
Anyone Can Fake Israel’s Vaccination Certificate - Here’s How Easy It Is (Haaretz, Feb 2021)
"Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point found a flaw in Israel’s so-called green passport, which serves as proof of vaccination against coronavirus and is intended to confer privileges on those who have already been inoculated"
Everything you need to know about Israel’s green passport program (The Jerusalem Post, Feb 2021)
"A green passport will be required to enter certain places and to participate in certain activities. Only people who have been vaccinated or have recovered from coronavirus will be eligible for one"
Israel moves to head of vaccine queue, offering Pfizer access to country’s health-care database (Washington Post, Jan 2021)
"Israel’s fast-moving vaccination program, which has already reached a third of the population, is built on a bargain. The vaccine maker agreed to keep up the quick-time delivery of doses in exchange for partial access to the vast database of information maintained by the country's national health-care system"
Impfstoff gegen Infos: Datenschutzdebatte in Israel (Tagesspiegel Background, Jan 2021)
“As it recently emerged, the Israeli government is paying the US manufacturer Pfizer for the fast delivery of its Covid-19 vaccine not only with money but also with data” (translated from German, ndr)
"The IDI experts describe the implementation of the 'Shield' (HaMagen) application as a colossal failure with 98% of Israelis who downloaded the second version subsequently removing it from their mobile devices"
Israel Seeks to Give Police Unrestricted Access to COVID Contact Tracing Data (Haaretz, Oct 2020)
"Proposed legislation would allow information on patients' movement and contacts, as collected by the Health Ministry and army, and possibly the Shin Bet security service, to be used for criminal investigations"
Digital contact tracing and the coronavirus: Israeli and comparative perspectives (Brookings Institution, Aug 2020)
"It goes on to survey the international scale of policy tools that have been selected for the purpose of digital contact tracing — ranging from China, which imposed mandatory means on all citizens that incorporate artificial intelligence and generate a “health code”; to Asian democracies such as South Korea and Taiwan, which have implemented intrusive digital tracking tools that are run by civil agencies, with no involvement of the secret services; to the democratic countries of Europe as well as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, which employ digital contact tracing only with citizens’ consent. Israel, it was found, has positioned itself between the Asian democracies and China."
"The Israeli government’s reliance on its Shin Bet security service for contact tracing reflects the way in which problems that affect all of society are, in Israel, translated into issues of national security. Rather than relying on public self-discipline, the government’s embrace of the Shin Bet reflects a command-and-control attitude in trying to deal with the pandemic that meant its procedures and regulations were not transparent to the public"
Israel suspends cellphone-tracking for coronavirus quarantine enforcement (Reuters, Apr 2020)
Latest update: Oct 4, 2021