Israel keeps emergency biometrics measures in place, more than a year into Gaza war

Last year, on October 7th, a Hamas attack on Israel plunged the country into a war against Gaza that would bring chaos to the region. But aside from death and destruction, the war has also brought unprecedented access to biometric data to the Israeli government, sparking fears over privacy violations for Israelis.

Just one month after the attacks, the Knesset approved full access to the National Biometric Database for Israeli security forces using expedited legislation. The new access was not to be monitored by other government agencies. Since then, the Ministry of National Security has been regularly extending the temporary order despite the country’s regulators, legal experts and rights organizations arguing against its necessity.

“This legislation was enacted under difficult conditions, time pressure, and uncertainty,” the country’s Biometric Commissioner Naama Ben Zvi told Israeli media outlet Calcalist.

The database holds fingerprint and facial data of approximately 7 million Israelis. In the beginning, authorities argued that the biometric data was critical for identifying the deceased, kidnapped and missing during Hamas’s attack. Alongside the data access, the government also started mandating that citizens applying for an ID card or passport also submit fingerprint and facial biometrics.

According to data from the Biometric Commissioner, however, the fingerprint data was not indispensable. The biometric database helped identify 106 people out of 1,205 casualties, around 11 percent. The individuals were also identified using methods such as DNA, dental records and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) biometric databases which hold records from military conscripts.

“From a national perspective, fingerprints are not a significant game changer,” says Ben Zvi, who also heads the Identity and Biometric Applications Unit at the Israeli National Cyber Directorate. Citizens should be given a choice when submitting biometric data, she adds.

“Taking fingerprints from the entire population infringes on privacy.”

The Biometrics Commissioner is not the only one criticizing the government over privacy.

The emergency regulation issued in November 2023 also allowed security agencies to access private security cameras without court approvals. At the same time, the government has been attempting to legalize sophisticated surveillance tools similar to NSO Group’s spyware Pegasus. According to non-profit organization Statwatch, the legislation is the latest step in the Israeli state’s plan to increase its access to data and surveillance tools.

In April, more than ten human rights groups signed a letter protesting the European Union’s decision to continue personal data transfers between the bloc and Israel citing the country’s latest changes in security laws and surveillance practices.

Israeli authorities have also faced criticism over the collection of biometrics from Palestinian residents and attempts to surveil the population through facial recognition, discovered by Amnesty International last year.

Resistance from both outside and inside of Israel, however, has had limited results.

Legal experts such as Gur Bligh, advisor to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, have proposed to the Privacy Protection Authority the introduction of supervision of the biometric database and shortening the temporary order. The privacy watchdog has also objected to the continued collection of biometric data.

In November, however, the Israeli Ministry of Public Security requested the extension of the temporary rule once again for another full year, citing intensifying battles on the northern front.

This is despite the fact that most bodies of Israelis have already been identified, says the Israeli non-profit organization Digital Rights Movement. Missing persons are currently being identified using genetic information and not biometric data. Many of the bodies have already decomposed, rendering fingerprints and faces unusable for biometric identification, according to media outlet Shakuf.

The final decision on extending the emergency regulation is still being considered by the Knesset. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel will play a significant role in the decision, according to Calcalist.

Biometric Commissioner Ben Zvi believes that the police will want to continue to collect fingerprints to identify deceased individuals

“The police are expected to identify quickly, so they want to use what they have, the more information, the better,” she says.

Israel’s activists, however, are still recording some wins in the battle for biometric privacy. In September, attorney Haim Ravia won a suit against the Population and Immigration Authority over an unregulated biometric database that stored images of citizens passing through automatic border crossings.

“Under the auspices of the war that broke out on October 7, the state is enacting more and more arrangements that violate the right to privacy beyond all measure,” says Ravia, according to a machine translation. “It is precisely under these circumstances that it is doubly important to enforce the right to privacy, which is a constitutional right in Israel.”

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometric database  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  identity management  |  Israel  |  regulation