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Israel adopts law allowing identities of unvaccinated to be shared

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Feb 24, 2021, 09:52 PM IST
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Photograph:(AFP)

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Israel’s parliament on Wednesday passed a law which allows the government to share the identities of those not vaccinated against COVID-19

Israel’s parliament on Wednesday passed a law which allows the government to share the identities of those not vaccinated against COVID-19.

The measure passed with 30 votes in favour and 13 against, and now gives local governments, the director general of the education ministry, and many officials in the welfare ministry to receive the names, phone numbers, and addresses of those who have not received the vaccine.

According to a parliament statement, the goal of this law is to ”enable these bodies to encourage people to vaccinate by personally addressing them”. The law will be valid for three months or until the pandemic is declared over.

Israel has over nine million people living within its borders, and it has administered the two Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on a third of its population. Israel is currently restricting certain services including access to gyms and indoor dining to those who have received the vaccination. The government provides a “green pass” to those who have received both the doses of the vaccine.

According to the parliament’s statement, the personal information of citizens cannot be used for purposes other than encouraging them to vaccinate. During discussion about the law, Labor party leader Merav Michaeli accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "denying citizens their right to the privacy of their medical information".

The law mandates the following - “The information will be deleted after its use within 60 days” and “a person who was contacted can demand that his details be deleted and that they not be contacted again”.

(With inputs from AFP)