The Knesset vote on the controversial Biometric identification law has been postponed, and the two sides are gearing up for a final showdown.
The delay in the vote, which was to have been held today (Monday), followed a last-minute session on the matter by the government’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation. The committee, responding to public opposition led by Cabinet Minister Michael Eitan, decided to hold another discussion dedicated to the bill.
Justice Minister Yaakov Ne’eman, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, and Minister Eitan are to meet to discuss possible final changes to the proposed bill. If changes are agreed upon, the Knesset Science and Technology Committee, responsible for preparing the bill for Knesset passage, will be called upon to approve the new version.
However, former Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima), who currently chairs the above Knesset committee, is the one who originally proposed the bill - and he vows to make sure the Knesset votes on it by this Wednesday.
The biometric bill calls for every citizen in Israel to have their fingerprints and facial features registered not only for the purpose of electronic ID cards and passports, but also for a nationwide data bank in government offices.
Opposition to the bill from various quarters has been growing. This past weekend, hundreds of people gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against it. In addition, MKs Carmel Shama (Likud), Avraham Michaeli (Shas), Hamed Amar (Israel Our Home) and Eitan Cabel (Labor) have asked for the bill to be reconsidered.
The main opposition centers not on the requirement for fingerprints for ID cards, but on the fact that the prints, together with other information on citizens, will be retained forever in a massive data bank. Minister Eitan says that the security measures to be emplaced to ensure that the data bank not leak and/or be broken into are ineffective and wasteful. “If the information leaks out,” Eitan says, “This will endanger vital interests of individuals and of the country. Instead of spending tens of millions of shekels on a special body that will protect the information, let’s just not build the data base in the first place.”
MK Sheetrit says that the bill has already been discussed in his committee “over the course of 20 sessions, some of which were 7-8 hours long. All the MKs who suddenly remembered that they have objections could have submitted them then, but they didn’t.”
Proponents of the bill say that while law-enforcment bodies are bound by laws regulating civil liberties, law-breakers have been able to take full advantage of technological developments for their own uses, without the strictures emplaced on the police - at the expense of law-abiding citizens, whose "identities" are thus vulnerable to theft.
Sheetrit said that the government has the option of withdrawing the bill from consideration. “If it informs me that it no longer supports it, I will withdraw it. But if not, then it will be brought up for a vote in the Knesset.”