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Israel Stops Using Phone Tracking To Enforce COVID-19 Quarantines (engadget.com) 25

Posted by msmash from the privacy-woes dept.
Israel's use of phone tracking technology to track COVID-19 patients has come to a partial end. From a report: A parliamentary oversight committee has halted use of the tracking to enforce quarantines after raising privacy concerns. The privacy violations outweigh the benefits, committee member Ayalet Shaked said -- the phone monitoring tech doesn't help much when police already pay visits to COVID-19 patients to ensure they're following the rules. Police have so far argued that the tool is effective, having arrested 203 people with the help of phone location info. Law enforcement conducted about 500 random location checks per day.
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Israel Stops Using Phone Tracking To Enforce COVID-19 Quarantines More

Israel Stops Using Phone Tracking To Enforce COVID-19 Quarantines

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  • Unnecessary intrusion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Saturday April 25, 2020 @12:19AM (#59988106)

    They are looking to introduce this here in Australia and I'm baffled as to why its necessary.

    Like I get that this was a big part in Chinas success suppressing this bug, but China already had that massive surveilance state. We don't. Singapore, a country whos citizens are more used to authoritarianism and surveilance only had a 20% compliance rate with the app. Far lower than needed for it to be useful. Theres no chance australians will comply.

    And why is it even necessary. We've manage to beat this bug down to to the point where we've almost beaten it. 100 cases left in my home state down from around 600. All this without the stupid phone tracking. Sounds to me that its just not necessary.

    But this is a government addicted to authoritarianism. Peter Dutton is the most anti civil rights politician this country has seen since the notorious Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelkie Peterson in the 70s and 80s. It seems like every few days hes anouncing some new power he's giving to himself to detain whistleblowers, people who use encryption or dissidents. Needless to say when he came down with Coronavirus a lot of us where privately kinda hoping the damn bug would shank him in the lung. Alas, he recovered and now back on TV announcing new laws to throw people in jail who dont hand over passwords , even without warrants. Yay fascism.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Singapore, a country whos citizens are more used to authoritarianism and surveilance only had a 20% compliance rate with the app.

      It's even worse than that. Singapore went intro strict lockdown when it broke out, which is why their incidence rate is extremely low (practically 0).

      But then they lifted restrictions and were hit hard. So hard, they had to shut down again. In fact, it's sort of funny since the shut down prohibits getting any form of dessert or candy (ice cream, doughnuts, chocolate, etc). Stores

  • Ongoing land heist, people kept in the world's largest detetntion camp, continuous human rights abuses: https://www.amnesty.org/en/cou... [amnesty.org] This opression needs to stop.

  • Does jailing offenders prevent spread? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Saturday April 25, 2020 @01:55AM (#59988318)
    Or promote it? The problem with police saying it's effective is not many cops are also epidemiologists.
  • So in brief, 203 people felt that the legal repercussions of evading quarantine were preferable to leaving their phone at home?

  • I work, and who can reverse it?

    Isaiah 43:13

  • Good on them (Score:3)

    by Sumguy2436 ( 6186944 ) on Saturday April 25, 2020 @06:11AM (#59988666)
    Meanwhile in Germany our politicians just decided to go for a centralized data storage app for the whole population. They're even talking about making it mandatory. So much for our privacy and data protection laws. The second they're inconvenient for the government they call backsies.
    • The flip side is Germany has handled the virus incredibly well and is poised to open the country.

      • The flip side is Germany has handled the virus incredibly well and is poised to open the country.

        Me I'm the "anykey" just be and do whoever you want to be.
        Oh that's you, your the "anykey"... there is no right answer, their all wrong.

        But if you find the right answer then you know all the wrong ones too.
        That's the truth and I'm an evil space monkey.... xD the "blue meany from outta space"
        I came down and you were all toxic and I was like chill guys, just chill out, just do whatever you like.

        Everyone has gone bonkers haven't they, me included :)

      • We're going to lift some restrictions in a couple of weeks but that's far from back to open. In fact we just made a big step backwards by getting a nationwide mandatory-mask-order for shopping and public transport. Then there's our economy, which is screwed. Doesn't stop our politicians from throwing money at every other country. We're in for an economic shitstorm. The one thing that makes us look good is the low number of deaths, which is low because we rarely do post-mortem tests.

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