All your biometric information will soon be public domain

On Tuesday the government presented a solution dating from the Stone Age, technologically speaking, as a panacea for the problems created by the biometric database law. It's another stage in the government's method of coping with the howls of outrage aroused by the law: Band-aids on top of Band-aids.

Events over the last year demonstrate how feeble Israel is at protecting personal data in government hands. A few months ago the state comptroller exposed the shocking security arrangements that led population registry data to leak from the Interior Ministry to the Internet. The information is protected by law, which didn't help. We can't reasonably hope that the government will prove any better any protecting other data.

The new law sets a penalty of five years in prison for anybody abusing information from the biometric database. What a joke. The police closed the registry leak case because of the sheer amount of suspects. The penalty sounds threatening, but the probability of enforcement is nonexistent.

To assuage unnerved Israelis, the government decided to set up two databases. One ministry will store biometric information using identity codes. The other, at another ministry, will store people's names with their associated codes. Even if one set of information is leaked, it's useless without the other. In theory.

But the "solution" is tantamount to the state admitting that no database is leak-proof. Furthermore, separating the databases will help only until one is breached. Once that happens, breach of the other becomes a matter of time. And once the data is out there, it's exposed for good. You can't replace your fingerprints.

The solution of two databases doesn't solve the most basic problem the program was created to address: forgery. Somebody will manage to forge or steal an identity. Then it will be up to the victim to prove with signs and wonders that he's himself, and the other guy is a fake.