JERUSALEM - Israel's cellphone surveillance for coronavirus contact-tracing may have overcome challenges by privacy watchdogs, but the state tracking policy is hard put to deal with low-tech evasion methods seemingly lifted from TV cop shows.
Some
Israelis, fearing a quarantine order after unwittingly being near a coronavirus
carrier, are rendering themselves untraceable while in public by switching
their cellphones to "airplane mode" or using prepaid
"burner" SIM cards instead.
Such actions
are not illegal and, although there is only anecdotal evidence for their
prevalence, they drew remonstration from Communication Minister Yoaz Hendel on
Sunday.
"This
is a problem," he told Ynet TV. "Ultimately, we are not a police
state. We will not manage to compel the citizens of the State of Israel to keep
to the health regulations."
The
surveillance, initially instituted without parliamentary oversight by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been anchored in legislation at the behest of
Israel's Supreme Court after it heard challenges by civil liberties groups who
worry the mass-surveillance is ripe for abuse.
Modeled
on a counter-terrorism technology and in force since March, the system
back-tracks movements of people who have tested positive for the virus to
determine who came within 2 metres (yards) of them for more than 15 minutes
while they were infectious.
Having
been identified by their own cellphone locations, these potential new carriers
are then ordered over SMS to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the
moment of exposure.
Around
80,000 people per week have received such notifications since July 1, according
to officials - an economic drag for a country of 9 million.
Officials
say the surveillance has detected some 30% of coronavirus cases in Israel. They
also acknowledge a false-positive rate of around 16%, sometimes due to a
vertical blind-spot in the technology which risks flagging people above or
below a coronavirus carrier in a multi-storey building.
Such
instances may be overturned on appeal - a process that can take several days,
during which the quarantine is in force.
Israel
offers a voluntary coronavirus app, HaMagen, whose latest upgrade includes
Bluetooth contact-tracing for greater precision. But with users complaining
about battery drainage, its market penetration has been far below the 60%
required for the state surveillance technology to be dropped, officials say.
Israel
has recorded 102,380 coronavirus cases and 834 deaths.
***Writing
by Dan Williams Editing by Frances Kerry