By Nathan Jeffay

Published August 12, 2009, issue of August 21, 2009.

HAIFA, ISRAEL — Israel may become the only democratic country to take biometric information from all citizens and store it in a database.

The plan, approved by a Knesset committee and set for a final vote in the fall, is expected to pass easily, as the largest opposition party and the government support the bill. But that apparently won’t prevent outraged human rights organizations, academics and grass-roots activists from spending the rest of the summer protesting the plan.

Champions of the database say it is crucial for Israel’s security. “The danger to the state in the present situation, in which there is no database of biometric information, is critical,” according to Kadima lawmaker Meir Sheetrit, who drafted the bill.

But opponents say that it actually will jeopardize security. “If such a database gets in the hands of a foreign country or terrorist organization, they will be able to identify any Israeli anywhere by their fingerprints or their picture,” claimed computer security expert Eli Biham, dean of computer science at Israel’s leading high-tech research institution, the Haifa-based Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.