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Israel has a new COVID tracking app that bypasses Big Brother

One of the side effects of COVID in a number of countries is how certain governments started tracking people (via their phones) in order to trace people's contact with those infected with coronavirus. Here in Israel, we had a more disturbing revelation - that the Shin Bet (internal security services) had been secretly tracking us for the last two and a half years, respective of the virus. On one hand it worked out great that we had a tracking system ready to go when this all started. On the other hand, it was an incredible invasion of privacy and on top of that, wasn't as accurate as it could be. Well now two civilians have taken matters into their own hands.

Eyal Ronen, an assistant professor of computer science at Tel Aviv University and Prof. Benny Pinkas, head of the cyber research center at Bar Ilan University, have made an updated version of the app HaMagen (the defender) which not only is much more accurate than the original one but also allows one to keep personal information away from the government. The kicker is, Israel has hinted that if enough people download it, they will do away with the Shin Bet's service. And already 1 million (out of a population of 9 million) have downloaded it within two weeks.


Meanwhile, if you love tech, what they did here is really neat...



And if you love Israel and want to be on the cutting edge of technology, check out my Israel tech tour. https://www.tourguideofisrael.com/hi-tech-tours


Now if only as a tour guide of Israel I could get one of these trackers for all my Birthright students when they go out at night so I don't have to stay out until 1 in the morning chasing after them :)


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