Israel tests biometric database
Israel will start a 2-year biometric database pilot; citizens applying for various identification documents will, on a voluntary basis, have their fingerprints taken along with a picture of their face; after two years the government will decide whether to make the biometric information collection mandatory
The Israeli Knesset has voted in favor of a bill for a compulsory biometric database of all citizens. The Biometrics Database Law passed the Knesset 40 votes in favor to 11 against. A big row over privacy forced the bill back to the drawing board. This led to the idea of a two-year trial rather than a full-blown introduction. Three months before the end of that period ministers will decide to adopt or ditch the technology.
John Oateswrites that for the first two years the scheme is voluntary. After that all citizens wanting an identification document will have their fingerprints taken along with a picture of their face. Electronic ID cards will contain a chip carrying two fingerprints and a digital picture.
Former interior minister Meir Sheetrit insisted the database would be safe “as any banking site” and the cards impossible to forge. He said: “If the databases of the Mossad, the Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security service] and the Prime Minister’s Office are currently protected at a level of 10, then this one will be protected at a level of 11.”
He said there would be two databases — one containing names and one containing biometric identifiers, the Jerusalem Post reports. One member of the Knesset claimed he already had supposedly private information from a recent Israeli census which he had found on the Internet.
