The Ministerial Committee on Legislation passed a bill on Sunday that would allow the state to collect biometric data including facial and fingerprint information on all non-citizens who visit the country.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has pressed for the bill, anticipating that the volume of illegal visitors, as well as foreigners who overstay their initial work visas, will soon return to its previous high level. The year of corona temporarily reduced the volume.
Although parallel initiatives to collect fingerprints of all citizens have previously been met with heavy opposition, there was no real objection to the current bill.
One industry expert on privacy said that the current bill does a better job than previously passed bills in placing checks on the ability of the government to share the collected foreigner data with law enforcement agencies.
Previous legislation regarding citizens was often viewed by privacy advocates as not sufficiently protecting individual’s data from law enforcement fishing expeditions.
Shaked said that the new data was crucial to be able to deal with and properly identify foreigners in cases where they break Israeli laws, something that has been challenging to date.
The interior minister said that much of this information could be collected in advance for foreigners seeking a visa, so that the process of entering Israel could be streamlined when they arrived in the country.
“The biometric law for foreigners is an important law, and with its approval, Israel will enter the list of Western nations, led by the US, which require biometric identification data upon entering the country,” said Shaked.
She added that if the Knesset passes the bill into law, Israel will be in a better position to catch terrorists and other more common criminals who abuse Israeli law and openness in a variety of ways.