Israel approves making biometric ID cards mandatory

Israel's Knesset (parliament) has approved a step that will see biometric ID cards made mandatory for the country's population.The law was passed after a second and third reading in a 39-to-29 vote on Tuesday. It is set to go into effect on July 3.The law requires all citizens to give high-resolution facial images to be stored in the national biometric database. They may, however, opt out of releasing their fingerprints to the database, though that information will remain on the card.As noted in a Times of Israel report, proponents of the law say it is necessary to prevent ID theft. Opponents have argued the database would be vulnerable to hacking, and compromises citizens' personal data.The biometric card is designed to digitally encode personal information, fingerprints, photo and facial profile. The data will be stored in a chip attached to the card, which will also contain the holder's name, gender and birth date. All information will be stored in a secured database.Those who refuse to store their fingerprints in the database will be required to renew their IDs every five years, rather than every 10.The final text also mandates that fingerprint information can be stored in the database only for those 16 or older, up from 12 in previous versions.It has been agreed that a final version of the law will obligate citizens to put facial recognition information in national database, but not necessarily fingerprints.The newly passed law takes into account a number of criticisms of a pilot plan that began in 2013, which has already seen some 1.2 million Israelis volunteer for the program.

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