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Israeli government to share names of unvaccinated people

Article Date - 02/24/2021

Their information won’t be the only thing spreading.

Israel’s government is planning to share information about unvaccinated people with other authorities.

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The Israeli parliament passed a law Wednesday allowing names, addresses and phone numbers of unvaccinated people to be shared with local governments, the leader of the education ministry and members of the welfare ministry, Agence France-Presse reported.

A woman receives a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a medical center in Dimona, Israel on Sunday.
A woman receives a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a medical center in Dimona, Israel on Sunday. (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)
Legislators said the law was designed to “encourage” people to get vaccinated and that by sharing this information, more trustworthy sources could reach out to individuals, according to AFP.

Lawmakers stressed that data would not be widely released or used for anything else, AFP reported. The law passed Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, 30-13.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported the measure, according to AFP. Haim Katz, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, argued for the bill: “I’ve been asked what about people’s privacy: Is privacy more important than life itself?” Katz said.

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More than 5,600 people in Israel have died from COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins. Nearly 2,000 people have died from the disease in the West Bank.