Adv. Amir Cahane

Memorandum of a Bill to Amend the Police Ordinance, which deals inter alia with the sensitive topic of the use of biometric facial recognition systems by the Israel Police, is abusive and disproportionate and reflects a lack of adequate preparatory work

Innocent Israelis should have the right to know about illegal surveillance– and the appropriate tools at their disposal to hold those responsible accountable for infringements on their privacy.

Israel’s rules governing privacy and related laws have experienced a dramatic past few weeks. These developments started with an Israeli Supreme Court ruling in favor of relaxed rules governing cellphone search warrants and ended with an expose revealing that Israeli police have been using NSO Group spyware allegedly without warrants or explicit statutory authorization.

NSO-Israel Police affair proves we need to rethink the way we oversee surveillance technologies. The solution: Israel needs a privacy czar

Does the law allow the use of spyware against any citizen, and who oversees the process? Is there any way of knowing if we are being followed? IDI experts explain

Israel reinstated contact-tracing activities by the Israel Security Agency to track carriers of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Five days later, it halted the ISA’s contact-tracing activities, due to a lack of parliamentary support.

The Supreme Court ruled to limit contact tracing but is it really possible to put an end to the ISA’s bulk coronavirus surveillance?

In its attempts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, Israel has employed a measure that has not been used by any other democratic country. Since mid-March, the Israeli government has sought the assistance of the General Security Service (also known as the Israeli Security Agency, the ISA, the Shabak or Shin Bet) in conducting epidemiological investigations by providing the Ministry of Health with the routes of coronavirus carriers and lists of individuals with whom they have been in close contact. The ISA queries its communication metadata database to identify the route of confirmed carriers and the individuals with whom they have been in close contact.

Israel's security agencies have sweeping surveillance powers, but are subjected to few checks and balances.