Israeli government wants to know even more about you

According to a report on Haaretz, the government is planning to require all citizens to give over personal contact information - mobile phone numbers and email addresses - to the Ministry of Interior.

They think that having this information will somehow help them send mail to citizens.

The reform will be approved, presumably, next week and then in 6 months anyone applying for government services from the population registry, such as applying for a new passport or identity card or whatnot, will have to submit this contact information - mobile number and email address. Refusal will not be punished. When submitting the information, the citizen can request to not be contacted except in case of emergency.

The various public services, such as government offices, the IDF, the police and the Knesset, will have access to this database of information, though the draft of the reform that is set to be passed does not include any sanctions on abusing this database.

Political parties already get access to the database of citizens information whenever there is an election, and private investigators have access as well.

It is easy enough to give a made up email address just for this. I have "spam" email addresses I use for filling out unnecessary forms on the Internet, so anyone can create an address for this type of thing as well. Phone number is more difficult to circumvent, should one want to. Personally, they have all the information on us already anyway. Anyone on the Internet and/or with a smartphone who thinks he has not already given up all his privacy and personal information is fooling himself. And anyway I have had to give the government offices my mobile number and email address when applying for different things already... if they want to send me something, they seem to already know how to find me. I am not sure how much this actually adds.

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