The Intelligence and Secret Services Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has extended the ISA's contact-tracing program until next Tuesday, May 5.
The government had been seeking an extension until May 7 for the program, which locates all the people with whom coronavirus carries have come into contact, using their cell phone data, enabling swift containment of the virus.
The Health Ministry presented its argument that it would be very hard to continue to loosen lockdown regulations without use of the ISA's program, and noted that all its exit strategies are based on using the ISA to pinpoint virus contacts. However, the number of virus carriers who have been identified via the ISA program was not revealed during the committee's hearing.