Not just NSO: Police will be required to justify espionage using "Hawk's Eye"

Following the petition of the Association for Civil Rights and "Israel's Privacy", the state will be required to explain why it continues to use the Ein HaNetz system, a tool for monitoring drivers on the roads, without receiving approval from the Knesset.

Keenan Cohen

18/01/2022

Tuesday, 18 January 2022, 13:20 Updated: 13:55

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The public and political storm that ensues following Calcalist's exposure of the alleged use of NSO's spyware against Israeli citizens once again makes headlines the system that apparently paved the way for the slippery slope of police intrusion into civilian privacy.

This is the "Hawk's Eye" system, a sophisticated camera system that reads the license plates of passing cars and manages documentation and tracking of the presence of vehicles at any given moment.

However, as far as its use is understood when it comes to locating a vehicle that has committed an offense or for the purpose of investigation - from the "Walla!" Investigation.

It emerged that the police also hold a database of general movement of unsuspecting civilians.

This is contrary to the directive of the Ministry of Justice.

More on Walla!

COURT: The police will have to bring a witness from abroad for any appeal of a speed camera report

To the full article

Your details go around unsupervised (Photo: Reuven Castro)

However, this illegal use against which the Civil Rights Association and the "Israel Privacy" organization have been fighting for more than a year may soon end. In a conditional order issued by the High Court following the petition of the two, the state is required to explain why it does not stop using the system as long as it is not regulated by appropriate legislation.

" "In the

petition filed about a year ago, it was claimed that the system is an extreme means of surveillance, since by keeping all the data of the system it allows easy access to sensitive information about the place of unsuspecting citizens or the encounters that exist. The non-databases." These regulations, which have been active for more than 8 years, also make it possible to go back and gather personal details about the movement of citizens.The lack of regulation and supervision make them a dangerous and open tool for use that violates privacy.

Located on both highways and many cities (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Surprisingly, the High Court's previous demand from the police to advance legislation on the subject and update on progress, the police used - say the Association for Civil Rights - to add to the legislative initiative provisions that would expand future use of the system to a much more invasive one - including a face recognition system

. The addition of these capabilities, which are invalid in themselves, has practical consequences. Hugh and Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights.

As stated, the court allocated 90 days to the state to justify why it does not stop using the system until its use is regulated by legislation.

Although this is progress since the last hearing on the issue in May 2021, as things stand now, the High Court has again missed the opportunity to stop using the system and in fact allows the police to continue to act in violation of the state's own guidelines. The speed camera farce of Project A3.

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• Hawk-Eye

• Israel Police

• police

• Traffic Division

• Traffic Police

• NSO