In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Israeli government has implemented new surveillance programs aimed at tracking the spread of the disease throughout Israel, and using collected data to enforce quarantines. While some of these techniques had previously been used by the Israeli military against Palestinians, the public introduction of such invasive and widespread domestic surveillance is raising global concerns regarding its future implications for privacy – in Israel and in democratic countries that may emulate Israeli policies. In parallel, and pre-dating the COVID-19 crisis, concern continues to grow about the role of Israeli companies in the development of new surveillance technologies – often based on tools developed by the Israeli military and tested on Palestinians in occupied territory — that in the hands of both governmental or private actors threaten privacy, political organizing, activism, and protest.

This webinar will explore all of these issues, with a panel of experts who will discuss what happening on the ground — vis a vis both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israelis – and how it is reverberating around the world.