Israeli surveillance tech used on taxpayers fails to detect security threats

Technology used by the Israel government to conduct domestic surveillance on taxpayers failed to detect a large-scale massacre Saturday by Muslim forces.

Israel declared a “state of war” Sunday after Muslims entered Israel from Gaza early Saturday morning. The invaders, said to be Hamas operatives, easily overpowered local police and military forces and slaughtered over 700 Israelis in nearby Israeli communities. Over 2,000 Israelis were injured and several dozen hostages were abducted into Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israeli forces have been deployed to regain control of the area.

Authorities have offered no explanations for how Israel’s highly trained military and sophisticated surveillance technology were rendered ineffective, particularly in light of how that technology has been used effectively against taxpayers.

Shin Bet internal security forces, for example, successfully used phone tracking technology during the COVID-19 pandemic to track the phones of “infected” private citizens without their knowledge or permission. Taxpayers who broke isolation were detected and heavily fined. 

Last year it was revealed that Israel Police employed a powerful surveillance tool called Pegasus to spy on non-criminal private citizens. The law enforcement agency hacked into the personal phones of CEOs, politicians, the families of politicians, witnesses and protesters. Some of the demonstrators, ironically, were protesting mistreatment by police.

Even the country’s top judges slammed the police last year for using yet another surveillance tool to spy on and search airport travelers. The software uses a secret artificial intelligence algorithm to profile and detain passengers at the airport who have no criminal history and provide no cause for suspicion. It gathers private information about citizens from government ministries, including databases from the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Welfare, the Tax Authority and others. The algorithm then compiles the data, which may include socioeconomic status, marital status, relatives, etc. and matches them against a predetermined criminal profile. It is unclear what significance the algorithm assigns to certain data. 

If there is a match, even if there is no criminal history, the passenger is detained at the airport by police before passing through border control. The reason for the detention is known only to police officers, who then conduct a search of the passenger’s luggage and may also conduct an invasive body search. 

When the police were ordered by a court to disclose the software for investigation, they simply refused.

Israel Police’s Hawk Eye program which has so far been used without official approval uses license plate recognition (LPR) cameras to track vehicles “just in case their vehicle is involved in a crime in the future.” Police reportedly maintain a massive database containing data on the movements of vehicles belonging to taxpayers across Israel. 

In May Israel Police purchased a surveillance tool without the required approval of the country’s attorney general. Echo, a spy software sold by Rayzone, can track the location of mobile phone users within one meter (3.3 feet). It accomplishes this by accessing an individual’s digital footprint which is left behind by anyone who uses the internet on their mobile phone. Locations can be pinpointed both in real time and in retrospect.

Despite all these tools, however, it reportedly took authorities an estimated six hours after receiving initial calls from citizens who were under attack Saturday morning to arrive at the scene.

Media operatives have tried to claim that the technology used by Israel’s forces at the Gaza border — including reconnaissance drones, subterranean RADAR, fence motion detection, thermal imaging technology, facial recognition systems and other technologies — were downed by simple “suicide drones” used by the invaders.

Last month Israel’s government signaled it would authorize police surveillance of taxpayers without a court order. The Knesset (Parliament) granted preliminary approval for a bill allowing police use of facial recognition surveillance cameras in public spaces.