Israeli government pushes bill for facial recognition surveillance cameras in public spaces
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, center, speaks with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, right, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, left, during a Knesset meeting in 2023. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
The Israeli government is advancing a bill permitting the police to place facial recognition cameras in public spaces. According to the proposal, submitted by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the police will also be able to place portable cameras at events such as protest demonstrations, on the condition that the “human factor” [a police officer] is convinced that the operation of the biometric camera does not amount to an undue invasion of any individual’s privacy.”
The bill, which will be brought on Monday to debate at the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, is drawing criticism due to concerns of invasion of privacy, and due to the loose monitoring criteria for the use of such cameras by the police. According to the bill, the placing of the cameras is intended to prevent, thwart, or detect serious crimes, to locate missing persons, and to enforce bans or restraining orders from public venues. To that end, the law would allow the police to receive a “real time alert” from the cameras on the presence of a specific person in the camera’s area of view.
The concern of harm to privacy is mentioned several times in the bill, with the qualifier being that such harm shall be done “to a degree not exceeding that necessary.” According to the bill, “these are photographic systems which include processing capabilities which enable the capturing of the image of individuals and comparing them to identified information uploaded to the system in their regard.”
The police claim that the cameras will enable the organization “to track the identity and location of suspects in the commission of crimes, and therefore constitute an effective tool for the detection and prevention of crimes and the execution of the police’s duties in the maintaining of public order and the protection of public safety and security.”
The bill is based on another bill, yet to be passed, which is intended to arrange the use of cameras in another system operated by the police – “Ein Hanetz” (“Hawkeye.”) The bill is awaiting a second and third vote, with the cameras meanwhile operating without legislative regulation. Both laws are meant to allow access to biometric photographs to a host of enforcement agencies, including the army, various prosecutorial authorities, the Police Investigations Unit, Shin Bet security service, the Witness Protection Authority, and any other public entity designated by the justice minister, with the approval of the Knesset’s National Security Committee.
Despite the broad access allowed to photographs by the law, there is little oversight of the police’s use of the cameras, as defined in both bills. The laws allow for a situation in which no agency other than the police oversees the operation of the cameras, except for an annual report on their use to be submitted to the attorney general and the Knesset. At the same time, the “authorized officer” in the bill is required to reconfirm the placing of the camera in its permanent place once a year.
According to the bill, data collected by the police will be kept in its possession, like other identifying data collected by the police, such as fingerprints. However, the bill states that biometric data that doesn’t lead to the identification of a person in real time “will not be stored in the biometric database save for a brief period of 72 hours, in order to allow for the location of persons of interest not located due to malfunction, or to realize the goals of the placement.”
In addition, the bill states that the national security minister and justice minister shall later on set “regulations for the execution of the law,” to include the issue of oversight on the camera systems. This means that these regulations will not be codified in law, and the ministers will be able to change them at will.
“When a policeman has the ability to place cameras in every neighborhood at the flick of a finger, there is an opening for exploitation and over-policing of certain populations,” the minister said. Tamano-Shata argued that it is proven that the technology is problematic in identifying dark-skinned people. She said that a committee must be established, or conversely that court orders should be required.
Dr. Tehila Shwartz Altshuler, an expert on law and technology at the Israeli Democracy Institute, told Haaretz that “placing an array of smart cameras in the public sphere will prevent people from acting freely for fear that they are under surveillance and [stop them] from realizing their political rights.”
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