digital

A digital register of land ownership in the West Bank is seen as an escalation of Israel’s occupation.

Occupied East Jerusalem, Palestine – A controversial Israeli plan to digitally register property ownership in the occupied West Bank is a “dangerous colonial occupation step that represents a direct assault on the historical and legal rights of the Palestinian people to their land and property”, the Palestinian Land Authority has said.

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) have urged Palestinians in the West Bank not to engage with any Israeli “entities, committees, platforms, or procedures” of lands and property.

Israel reportedly launched the online “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” platform on which it plans to “update” property ownership in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday this week.

The Jerusalem Governorate and the CRRC have called on the international community, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and all international human rights and legal institutions to “take their urgent responsibilities to stop these illegal procedures and hold the occupying state accountable for its continuous violations against the Palestinian people, their land, and their resources”, they said.

Moayad Shaaban, head of the CRRC, which is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the move reveals “the occupation’s transition from traditional policies of field control to digital and administrative colonial engineering aimed at imposing permanent legal realities on the occupied Palestinian territory”.

‘Annexation’ by land registry

In May 2025, the Israeli Security Cabinet launched a new, aggressive land settlement process throughout the West Bank, with the aim of “completing the legal and administrative annexation of the occupied territories through fully registering the lands under Israeli authority”, the Jerusalem Governorate said.

Then, in July 2025, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. The move was first tabled in 2024 by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement.

On February 15, 2026, the permanent acquisition and registration of approximately 58 percent of Area C – the part of the West Bank over which Israel exerts total control – began.

Under that decision, Palestinian land registration in the Israeli “Tabu” – the land registry extract – began for the first time since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It is a final measure that will be difficult to challenge in Israeli courts, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported in February.

With the onset of land settlement, the Israeli Land Registry unit will take over the regulation and registration of land ownership in Area C. It also has the power to issue sales permits and to collect fees. Israel aims to complete the full settlement of 15 percent of the West Bank by the end of 2030.

Some 700,000 Israeli settlers already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as illegal settlement has expanded under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rights groups say settlement approvals, along with rising settler violence against Palestinian communities, have accelerated since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Who actually gets to go to the World Cup? With US President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policies, some fans may never make it past the American border. Because while teams qualify on merit, passports don’t. Al Jazeera’s Samantha Johnson explains.

China currently boasts one of the lowest rates of homicide, violent crime, and gun and explosive incidents globally. The Chinese-style sense of security is a comprehensive system integrating advanced technology, community engagement, and continuous improvement in living standards. This has positioned China as one of the safest countries in the world, according to the 2025 Global Security Report, with 98.2% of Chinese citizens feeling safe by 2025, further solidifying its status as a globally stable destination. The pillars of this Chinese-style sense of security are built upon advanced digital technologies, relying on smart networks and modern surveillance systems such as facial recognition and artificial intelligence to enhance the security network within China.

The phrase “Chinese-style security” refers to China’s model for achieving social stability and reducing crime rates. This model is based primarily on three pillars: proactive prevention systems, where, rather than simply addressing crime after it occurs, China focuses on prevention and control through extensive security networks and a constant police presence in key areas; the continuation of the community mobilization system (the Fengqiao model), a historical concept (currently revived) that involves citizens and local committees in resolving community disputes before they escalate into crimes or legal cases, thus promoting the idea of ​​self-regulation and public cooperation with Chinese authorities; and the use of digitalization and artificial intelligence technologies, where China has heavily invested in smart city technologies and the Skynet system. Skynet utilizes millions of cameras equipped with facial recognition and big data analytics to predict suspicious activities and track wanted individuals with high precision. This combination aims to create a secure environment that supports economic growth within China, despite the occasional international debates it sparks regarding the balance between public security and individual privacy.

Data and reports confirm exceptional social stability in China, with citizens’ sense of security exceeding 98% for six consecutive years. This security is attributed to effective governance, advanced digital technologies, and a high standard of living, making China a safe destination for investment and a source of stability. Key features of Chinese governance and the sense of security include increased levels of trust and optimism, with the Chinese people ranking among the world’s highest in trust in the government and optimism about the future, according to trust index reports. A robust safety net exists, built on Chinese-style security through crime prevention systems, community mobilization, and enhanced digitalization. These systemic features, along with numerous other advantages, reflect the stability within China and the state’s ability to fulfill its commitments and provide a safe and stable social environment, earning international praise, particularly in light of global geopolitical conflicts. With the continuation of Chinese-style modernization, ongoing modernization has contributed to raising living standards, thus strengthening the sense of security within China.

Accordingly, the Chinese government and the authorities of the ruling Communist Party of China support several pillars and points that support this approach to enhance the sense of security within the country. Based on current developments, focusing on security as the foundation for development in China, the stability of the situation in China is seen as a key element in boosting investor confidence and building a safe and stable living environment for citizens, which contributes to economic growth. With the intensification of the Chinese-style modernization model, modernization in China is not limited to economic growth but also focuses on improving the quality of life, providing employment opportunities, and upgrading social services, which significantly raises living standards. With the stable sense of security, China, through well-considered social policies, has succeeded in maintaining a high level of social security, which enhances public trust in the government and contributes to long-term stability. This has resulted in continued international praise (amidst crises). At a time when several regions around the world are experiencing geopolitical conflicts, China’s stability stands out as a model attracting the attention and scrutiny of international observers, particularly due to the Chinese state’s ability to effectively manage its internal affairs compared to many systems worldwide, including American and Western ones. This strengthens China’s capacity to lead the developing Global South and strongly promote its model of Chinese governance.

Based on the preceding understanding and analysis, we can see how the development for security strategy can form a fundamental pillar within the Chinese governance system. Improving living standards contributes to consolidating social stability and public security within China. This analysis highlights a delicate equation in the contemporary Chinese landscape, where continuous development (Chinese-style modernization) is linked to social stability, creating a secure environment in a turbulent world.

WASHINGTON  — A man carrying a gun and a cellphone entered a federal credit union in a small town in central Virginia in May 2019 and demanded cash.

He left with $195,000 in a bag and no clue to his identity. But his smartphone was keeping track of him.

What happened next could yield a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court on the 4th Amendment and its restrictions against “unreasonable searches.”

Typically, police use tips or leads to find suspects, then seek a search warrant from a judge to enter a house or other private area to seize the evidence that can prove a crime.

Civil libertarians say the new “digital dragnets” work in reverse.

“It’s grab the data and search first. Suspicion later. That’s opposite of how our system has worked, and it’s really dangerous,” said Jake Laperruque, an attorney for the Center for Democracy & Technology.

But these new data scans can be effective in finding criminals.

Lacking leads in the Virginia bank robbery, a police detective turned to what one judge in the case called a “groundbreaking investigative tool … enabling the relentless collection of eerily precise location data.”

Cellphones can be tracked through towers, and Google stored this location history data for hundreds of millions of users. The detective sent Google a demand for information known as a “geofence warrant,” referring to a virtual fence around a particular geographic area at a specific time.

The officer sought phones that were within 150 yards of the bank during the hour of the robbery. He used that data to locate Okello Chatrie, then obtained a search warrant of his home where the cash and the holdup notes were found.

Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea, but the Supreme Court will hear his appeal on April 27.

The justices agreed to decide whether geofence warrants violate the 4th Amendment.

The outcome may go beyond location tracking. At issue more broadly is the legal status of the vast amount of privately stored data that can be easily scanned.

This may include words or phrases found in Google searches or in emails. For example, investigators may want to know who searched for a particular address in the weeks before an arson or a murder took place there or who searched for information on making a particular type of bomb.

Judges are deeply divided on how this fits with the 4th Amendment.

Two years ago, the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled “geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the 4th Amendment.”

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s liberals in a 4th Amendment privacy case in 2018.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Historians of the 4th Amendment say the constitutional ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures” arose from the anger in the American colonies over British officers using general warrants to search homes and stores even when they had no reason to suspect any particular person of wrongdoing.

The National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers relies on that contention in opposing geofence warrants.

Its lawyers argued the government obtained Chatrie’s “private location information … with an unconstitutional general warrant that compelled Google to conduct a fishing expedition through millions of Google accounts, without any basis for believing that any one of them would contain incriminating evidence.”

Meanwhile, the more liberal 4th Circuit in Virginia divided 7-7 to reject Chatrie’s appeal. Several judges explained the law was not clear, and the police officer had done nothing wrong.

“There was no search here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a concurring opinion that defended the use of this tracking data.

He pointed to Supreme Court rulings in the 1970s declaring that check records held by a bank or dialing records held by a phone company were not private and could be searched by investigators without a warrant.

Chatrie had agreed to having his location records held by Google. If financial records for several months are not private, the judge wrote, “surely this request for a two-hour snapshot of one’s public movements” is not private either.

Google changed its policy in 2023 and no longer stores location history data for all of its users. But cellphone carriers continue to receive warrants that seek tracking data.

Wilkinson, a prominent conservative from the Reagan era, also argued it would be a mistake for the courts to “frustrate law enforcement’s ability to keep pace with tech-savvy criminals” or cause “more cold cases to go unsolved. Think of a murder where the culprit leaves behind his encrypted phone and nothing else. No fingerprints, no witnesses, no murder weapon. But because the killer allowed Google to track his location, a geofence warrant can crack the case,” he wrote.

Judges in Los Angeles upheld the use of a geofence warrant to find and convict two men for a robbery and murder in a bank parking lot in Paramount.

The victim, Adbadalla Thabet, collected cash from gas stations in Downey, Bellflower, Compton and Lynwood early in the morning before driving to the bank.

After he was robbed and shot, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective found video surveillance that showed he had been followed by two cars whose license plates could not be seen.

The detective then sought a geofence warrant from a Superior Court judge that asked Google for location data for six designated spots on the morning of the murder.

That led to the identification of Daniel Meza and Walter Meneses, who pleaded guilty to the crimes. A California Court of Appeal rejected their 4th Amendment claim in 2023, even though the judges said they had legal doubts about the “novelty of the particular surveillance technique at issue.”

The Supreme Court has also been split on how to apply the 4th Amendment to new types of surveillance.

By a 5-4 vote, the court in 2018 ruled the FBI should have obtained a search warrant before it required a cellphone company to turn over 127 days of records for Timothy Carpenter, a suspect in a series of store robberies in Michigan.

The data confirmed Carpenter was nearby when four of the stores were robbed.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, joined by four liberal justices, said this lengthy surveillance violated privacy rights protected by the 4th Amendment.

The “seismic shifts in technology” could permit total surveillance of the public, Roberts wrote, and “we decline to grant the state unrestricted access” to these databases.

But he described the Carpenter decision as “narrow” because it turned on the many weeks of surveillance data.

In dissent, four conservatives questioned how tracking someone’s driving violates their privacy. Surveillance cameras and license plate readers are commonly used by investigators and have rarely been challenged.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer relies on that argument in his defense of Chatrie’s conviction. “An individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in movements that anyone could see,” he wrote.

The justices will issue a decision by the end of June.