Government Services Minister Michael Eitan (Likud) called for the immediate reevaluation and halt of the establishment of a biometric population registry and identity system following the announcement Monday that sensitive personal information of every Israeli citizen was stolen by a government contractor and put on the Internet.
"The state is building a time bomb that will explode in all of our faces," Eitan said of the biometric program that is set to begin a pilot program next month. "There is no disagreement that the biometric database is dangerous, but [they] are making false promises that the database will be hermetically sealed with unprecedented security."
He questioned whether it can be ensured that there will be no other disgruntled workers among those working with the biometric registry, who may distribute the public's finger prints and facial scans.
The biometric population registry, Eitan said, "will beleaked and broken into also, and it's only a matter of time. I hope that the lesson will now be learned and a complete reevaluation will take place in relation to the dangerous and useless biometric database."
The Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel praised the Justice Ministry for solving the five-year-old case of the theft of personal information from the Population Registry but warned that such information, if obtained by criminals or terrorists would cause irreversible damage.
The case of the stolen information from the Population Registry "is a warning to all Israeli residents: Don't give your finger prints to somebody who doesn't know how to guard much less sensitive personal information," head of privacy and information for ACRI, lawyer Avner Pinchuk said.
The Interior Ministry, Pinchuk added, "recently admitted that a leak of biometric information would cause 'irreparable damage to an individual citizen' but promises us that it knows how to protect the biometric registry." The pilot program for biometric identity cards is set to begin later this year.
Jerusalem Post
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