JERUSALEM – The head of Israel's shadowy Shin Bet internal security service said Tuesday that his agency received Cabinet approval overnight to start deploying its counter-terrorism tech measures to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus in Israel.
While Nadav Argaman acknowledged that using the agency's capabilities to track sick Israeli citizens deviates from Shin Bet's typical operations against Palestinian militants, he said the goal was still in line with its overall mission of “saving lives.” He vowed there would be stringent oversight to maintain individual privacy and that operatives would only use their geolocation findings from cellphones and credit card use to warn those that may be exposed to the virus — rather than