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Last week, Israel Hayom revealed that the ministry intended to probe the claims circulating about NSO's conduct. The report said that the team entrusted with looking into the reports would include representatives of the Defense Ministry, the National Security Council, the Mossad, and other officials. The team is charged with clarifying whether or not NSO Group operated in accordance with the terms of its defense export permit, which it received from the Defense Ministry's Defense Exports Control Agency (DECA), and whether or not the company's products have been used in ways that violate the terms of the permit.

The decision to launch a probe into the affair was made following the sensation caused by reports in 17 international media outlets, including the Washington Post and the Guardian, which were based on a leaked document that the reports said included 50,000 cellphone numbers that various governments had asked to track using NSO's Pegasus software.

The authors of the expose claimed that in 37 cases that had been checked, Pegasus had been used to crack or try to crack the devices of political officials, elected officials, journalists, and human rights activists. The report also claimed that a few national leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, had been targeted for tracking.

Unsurprisingly, the report sparked massive backlash against NSO. France's chief prosecutor announced that he had launched an investigation into the matter after the site Mediapart claimed that two of its reporters had been the targets of Morocco's security services, which had supposedly employed the Pegasus software. Meanwhile, the Indian new site The Wire said that the government had asked to track the cellphone of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.

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The Shin Bet's surveillance technology has been used on and off to track carriers since March, and the Knesset in a late-night decision approved the measure through Jan. 20, 2021, the Knesset news agency reported.

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The security agency tracks location data of confirmed carriers for 14 days before they were diagnosed. That data is used to identify anyone with whom they came into contact, which proponents say is crucial to infection chains.

The surveillance has drawn challenges from privacy watchdog groups, and the Supreme Court cited worries over dangers to individual liberty in demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government regulate the surveillance through legislation.

The new law includes additional oversight, requiring the government to renew its request every three weeks, and it can be used only when new daily cases exceed 200. Those ordered into isolation can appeal if they believe the data was inaccurate.

The Knesset also instructed the Health Ministry to roll out an upgraded cell phone app that can be downloaded by the public to help track infection.

Israel reopened schools and many businesses in May, lifting restrictions that had flattened the infection curve after a partial lockdown imposed in March.

But a second-wave surge has many public health experts saying the government moved too quickly while neglecting to take the necessary epidemiological steps to control the pandemic once the economy reopened.

Israel, with a population of 9 million, reported about 1,500 new infections on Monday. In total, it has reported 415 deaths from the virus.

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The post Knesset greenlights smartphone COVID tracking through end of 2020 appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.