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 Used on and off since March 2020 in efforts to curb the pandemic,
the Shin Bet counter-terrorism agency's surveillance technology
matched carriers' locations against other mobile phones nearby to
determine with whom they came into contact.
From the outset, civil rights groups had mounted court challenges
over privacy concerns while lawmakers cast doubt about the efficacy
of the contact-tracing tool.
In its ruling, the court said it feared the mobile phone tracing,
imposed as a temporary emergency measure, was slowly becoming
permanent. It gave the government until March 14 to end
indiscriminate use of the surveillance and limit it to confirmed
coronavirus carriers who refuse epidemiological questioning.
"We hope this ruling will lead the government and the Knesset
(parliament) to pause and change course from this slippery slope of
using extreme and undemocratic means in the fight against the
epidemic," the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the
groups that petitioned the court, said in a statement.
As of December, surveillance alone had accounted for 7% of case
detections in Israel, according to the Intelligence Ministry, with
questioning by Health Ministry investigators accounting for the
rest. But officials have argued that it has helped save many lives.
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 "I think this is a crime
against the health of Israeli citizens," Deputy
Health Minister Yoav Kisch said on Twitter after
the Supreme Court verdict.
The Shin Bet phone tracing technology was
previously known mostly as a means to track down
wanted Palestinian militants.
Israel has so far reported 778,172 coronavirus
cases and 5,758 deaths.
With a third wave of infections peaking in
January, contagion has been falling in recent
weeks as authorities have administered at least
one of two COVID-19 vaccination doses to more
than half of the country's population of 9
million.
(Editing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Mark
Heinrich)
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