Welcome to the 15th Newsletter of the HUJI CyberLaw Program.
This newsletter is published in the midst of the public health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which constitutes an unprecedented phenomenon in many respects, including in being the first major pandemic experienced by the world during times of global online connectivity. Indeed, the online environment plays a key role in mediating the transfer of information about the disease, the serious harms it has been causing, and the drastic measures taken to address it. The online environment has also mitigated some of the repercussions of isolation measures, by allowing the conduct online of many professional and private interactions, including through video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom.
One of the more controversial applications of digital technology during the current crisis has been the use of cellular tracking, at times through online apps whose download was made compulsory by governments, and big data, in order to enforce quarantine measures, to conduct epidemiological investigations with a view to identifying infection paths and patterns, and to manage the gradual return of healthy individuals to their daily routine. Resort to these surveillance and data analysis tools appears to have assisted countries to assume control over a very difficult situation, and to limit the number of casualties and the scope of economic harm experienced. Still, applying such tools on vast numbers of people – in some cases, to the entire population of a region or even a country, raises serious concerns over privacy and personal liberty. Moreover, there remain doubts about the necessary and proportionality of certain infringements of basic rights through digital technology, especially given the availability of less harmful alternatives, such as resort to voluntary apps.
In Israel, the debate around use of digital technology in connection with COVID-19 has centered mostly around emergency regulations, initially passed by the government without Parliamentary supervision, which authorized the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) to employ its cellular tracking capabilities - honed over the years in the context of its counter-terrorism operations - for epidemiological investigations. This essentially gave the ISA the power to track the movements of all Israelis with a view to ensure that they did not come in close contact with COVID-19 patients. Among the concerns that were raised about this authorization one may note the broad language used to describe what is collectable data (all “technological data” – i.e., metadata), the limited external review safeguards put in place, the longer than necessary periods of data retention, and the doubts about the reasonableness of the trade-off between the additional information provided by ISA-employed technology and the dangerous precedent of using the secret service to spy on the population at large. These latter doubts have intensified after the local of Ministry of Health launched a voluntary tracking app – “HaMagen” (the protector) – that is designed to perform a similar function to the ISA program (albeit only with regard to app users), and following reports about many inaccuracies of the tracking information generated by the ISA. At the time of writing, the ISA program is set to expire at the end of April, and the cost-benefit analysis of the program would no doubt be the topic of much academic and policy-oriented research.
This newsletter contains a further discussion of the details of the COVID-19-related ISA surveillance program (in a blog post by Amir Cahane). It also reports on the activities of our digital rights clinic in connection with the public health crisis, new research into big data trends about COVID-19 infection rates by Prof. Aviv Zohar and Prof. Katrina Ligett and the transfer of Federmann Center conferences to online platforms. It also includes information on other research activities, which continue taking place in the fields of cyber-insurance and cyber-attacks.
We in the Federmann Cyber Security Research Center would like to wish you a happy Passover/Easter/Ramadan season and to send you and your families best health greetings. Like always, I and the rest of the team on the Federmann Center would be most happy to discuss with you further the topics mentioned in this newsletter and in our other publications.
Sincerely,
Yuval Shany
Program Director