Article written by Haim Ravia, Dotan Hammer and Adi Shoval
An article published by Haaretz Newspaper in Israel alleges that the Israeli police operate a tool that tracks users’ online activities. The police reportedly mandate Israeli internet access providers to re-route certain users’ traffic from the public Internet to a network controlled by the police, thus allowing the police to track these users’ online activities.
The police reportedly use this tool either to track the online activity of certain users or to track the online activity of certain websites, with the latter form of tracking capturing all users who use the monitored websites. The tool also allows the police to manipulate the content presented to users so that they are presented with content different from the website’s original content.
The police’s use of the tool was allegedly performed under the police’s statutory authority in cases of urgency to obtain data from internet providers without first securing a judicial warrant. However, the police declined to comment on the allegations that it secretly uses the tool without judicial or public scrutiny.
CLICK HERE to read the Haaretz article (in Hebrew).
