The draft, dubbed "the biometric database bill", is a single parliament session away from becoming reality, and irreversibly compromising the privacy of Israeli citizens. Although the mere collection of such information is a severe invasion of privacy, human rights arguments are a bit too delicate for a state like Israel, so we'll try to focus on the practical aspects.

The problem the bill attempts to solve is that Israeli ID cards are outdated and very easy to forge. The proposed solution is to issue smart ID cards that would include biometric data - finger prints and facial features. The biometric information collected from all citizens will also be stored in a central database.

There's a serious problem with the current ID cards that the bill does not only fail to solve, but actually perpetuates:

In Israel, a national register of ID numbers acts in a similar way to the US Social security, each person is assigned a unique identification number. However, as this number is used as the person's identifier at all government and commercial databases, it not only makes identity theft easier, but also enables criminals to spy on individuals more efficiently than governmet officials: when a criminal gets hold of illegal copies of various government and commercial databases, they all can be cross-refernced, using the ID number as a key.

This is not theoretical: there are several government databases that leak to torrents on a regular basis. Others are a bit more costly, but available. Many kids out there can get your family tree (including addresses) from your name and address, but a private detective can also bring you bank transaction reports and medical history.

Technology enables us to rectify this by letting the card verify itself in a different manner to each body (police, hospital, border control or even a gym). The bill, on the other hand, proposes the opposite:

The biometric database will not only ensure that people stay uniquely identified as they are now, but would also base all this on biometric information, making the risks of both identity theft and adverse identification irreversible. If even a slight portion of the database is leaked or accessed by malicious bodies, witness protection would become impossible, and terrorists abroad would be able to use facial recognition to locate Israelis in crowded public places. They'll even have some useful background details about their potential victims.

There are other issues like mission creep or the expected leak of the database to "friendly" foreign agencies, but it seems like in the future the "big brother" would become a minor player in the privacy abuse market.

2. Legislative coup

The man who's proposed the draft to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) is MK Meir Chetrit (also spelled Sheetrit in mainstream media), and he seems to be in a rush to pass it. He has already managed to bind the government (while he was still minister of interiors) in a contract with HP that contained a vague clause "legislature will be needed in order to complete this project". HP was announced in the newspapers as the company who'd implement this system before there was a bid where HP was the only contender.

At the Knesset, there were tricks like scheduling discussions during times where other MKs where needed for elsewhere, or adjourning a discussion hours before the official schedule in order to keep the opposition away.

3. The media

The complexity of the issue makes it easier for Chetrit's propaganda and harder for the opposition to educate the public. Mainstream media tended to ignore this issue, except for an occasional item in the "computers and gadgets" sections.

This has changed when a group of [then] 14 internationally-known scientists have signed a letter warning the government about the dangers of such a database. The letter has made it to the front page of "Yedioth" daily and was a breakthrough in public awareness.

On the net - there are many loosely coordinated people and groups opposing the proposal

• No2Bio.org, an ad-hoc group against the proposal (Hebrew)

• The ACRI antibiometric blog (Hebrew) by attorney Avner Pichuk from ACRI

• A list of 160 bloggers against the proposal (Hebrew)

• Two free software projects were released as a result of the campaign against the proposal:

  • CCN - Collaborative newsflash widget, for embedding inside supporting blogs

  • MKLobby - Situation assessment based on presence of MKs in the Knesset

• This is not an exhaustive list. There are many initiatives on the net in order to block this proposal, and we regret that we can't include them all here.

There are also many groups in social networks and many talk-backs on the issue in mainstream sites tend to be against the proposal and well informed, yet convincing the Israeli internet community is not enough. A large portion of the general public is still stuck in the "only criminals would worry about this" stage, and so are many MKs.

4. Contact

• Avner Pinchuk, Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI): apinchuk ¤ acri.org.il

• Jonathan Klinger: jonklinger ¤ gmail.com

5. Links

• Ynet - Knesset to vote on biometric database bill during recess

• Jonathan Klinger - The Law Must Go On

• Globes - Privacy Council opposes biometric database

• Ynet - Public Defender's Office joins fight against biometric database

• Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, about the Israeli proposal: PDF