Dr. Haim Shain of Shaarei Mishpat Law School told Arutz Sheva on Monday that the uploading of Israel's population registry to the Internet, managed by the Argon 2006 program, has far-ranging negative consequences.
Shain's warning comes on the heels of the Justice Ministry announcing that a contract worker from the Ministry of Labor and Welfare had been charged with stealing the personal information of over 9 million Israelis from the Population Registry.
"The program has significant personal information about citizens of Israel - both living and dead," Shane said.
Dr. Shain said the public had been misinformed about how secure Argon 2006 is, the amount of private data uploaded to the internet, and the potential consequences involved.
"First, in principle, a person has a right to maintain privacy, and now no one has privacy. Beyond that, there are serious consequences and damages, such as identity theft of credit card holders," Shain told Arutz Sheva.
"Soldiers and security forces also have their private data potentially exposed in detail. And one of the greatest problems is that it will include a biometric database, which, if the database is again compromised, will also be vulnerable. "
"Since 2006, and especially after the recent elections, many people know this software is on the market and how you can get it. What concerns me is that it took state authorities so many years to decipher the breach and take action,"
"I think it's too late to a great extent," Dr. Shain concluded, "The same people who use it over the Internet can limit access, but many people were burning the software [before the breach was discovered] and no one can prevent them from using it."
The worker charged with the theft electronically copied identification numbers, full names, addresses, dates of birth, information on family connections and other information in order to sell to a private buyer, but the data later appeared on the Internet.