Israel Moves Toward a National Biometric Database

An anonymous reader writes "Israeli's government has approved the creation of a biometric database which would contain fingerprints and facial photos of all Israeli citizens. If the bill becomes law — and it is at an early stage — the biometric information of each citizen would be embedded in their passport and national ID card. Israeli citizens would be required by law to submit to biometric testing upon request by government employees, soldiers, and policemen, so that their biometric info can be compared to the info embedded in their ID card / passport. The declared purpose of the bill is to combat forgery of passports and ID cards, and also to aid identification 'in cases of a mass disaster.' The bill was approved over objections from civil rights groups and the Israeli Bar. The article notes that no other democratic country has a comprehensive biometric database of all citizens."

Comments

I am an Israeli

[Shohat]

This thing probably won't pass. I know that for Americans it's very hard to understand, but being a liberal and serving in an elite combat unit goes hand in hand here.
If you don't believe me, just read the news stories, and the bios of the kidnapped soldiers. The front lines are CEOs, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians, accountants and what not. The middle+ class are the people that go to war. The most leftist and liberal leaders were always the best generals - Rabin (Oslo) , Barak (pulled out of Lebanon), and in his last years, Ariel Sharon who pulled out of Gaza. And most importantly, there is not a single religious general, and Israel never had a religious leader.
I design complex real-time control systems (Mostly based on PIC/NEC/Toshiba ), and like any Israeli, for 28 days a year, I become a soldier. Despite what you may or may not understand about our society, chances are that there is plenty of holes in your understanding how this microscopic 5 million people country works.
But point is, nobody here trusts the government, the current government is extremely weak, and on the verge of being replaced. This thing will not pass. Most people here read 1984 =).

Re:You would think that they would learn from hist

[Naughty Bob]

Dude, it's not the Israeli Jews who will suffer here. It's the indigenous population. The Palestinians.

They are the ones who will suffer.

I'll be kind of gutted if you think I'm being anti-semitic, because I kinda pride myself on being 'right on' about shit in general. No- this is nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state, and everything to do with it being a colony. Every colony that ever existed bullied the aborigines to a greater or lesser extent.

Not to get too pop-psychological, but there's also an element of 'the abused becoming the abuser' about Israel.

Re:It's just one worrying trend

[mux2000]

This database will give the police and the army more power to identify and harass, not only the Palestinians, but people who disagree with the settlers and the ultra-Zionists.

Since this database is used for collecting data on Israeli citizens it is useless against Palestinians, since they are not citizens of Israel, nor of any other country.

This is useful only against criminals, Israeli Arabs (who seldom serve in the army, and therfore didn't get their photo and finger-prints taken already), and as you mentioned, most useful against political resistance. Keeping the Israeli populace ignorant of the atrocities Israel performs takes huge amounts of propaganda, censureship and such tactics. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if this is designed to track political ("extreme-left", "bleeding hearts", "arab-lovers") dissidents as well as other threats.

Full disclosure - I am Israeli.

Oh fuck. I just shot myself in the foot, didn't I?