Biometric identification database ‘far from secure’

Arutz Sheva spoke about Israel’s new biometric identification database law with consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre, co-author with Dr. Katherine Albrecht of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move, and who works as a consultant for Startpage.com and Startmail.com, privacy-based services to help protect consumers against surveillance.

The Israeli Knesset passed a new law that mandates identity cards which include more advanced ways of keeping track of people and make it easier to store identities and share information between agencies and governments. It is presented as a good thing, a way to track missing or lost persons, and to aid in law-enforcement. What could be the problems or dangers of mandating biometric identification?

“With any kind of tracking technology that is introduced, all the positives are put forward towards adoption, a lot of times using scare tactics, like, ‘This database is for when people go missing’, or, ‘To make sure that we know who you are for your bank account’, those kind of things, but very few of the downsides are brought forward.

 

Read More: Consumer privacy expert: Biometric identification database ‘far from secure’ – Israel National News