Another step on the way to exemption from visas to the United States: Justice Minister Gideon Saar last night (Thursday) published a bill collecting and diagnosing data of passengers entering and leaving Israel.
According to the law, a national center will be established whose role is to diagnose data on passengers entering or leaving Israel.
The establishment of the database is intended to compare the current situation in Israel with that in 90 countries around the world, including the European Union, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
In addition, the United States demanded the establishment of the database as one of the conditions for obtaining an exemption from visas for Israelis, so if there are delays in its enactment, the exemption may be delayed. By law, the database will be operated by the tax authority. Passengers arriving in Israel, including name, photo, passport number and other data.
The information will be transmitted in three time periods: 48 hours before the flight, after the registration for the flight and after boarding the plane.
Minister of Justice Gideon Saar, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Everyone will be checked
After the information is provided, a preliminary computerized check will be carried out by the law enforcement authorities on all passengers.
If the computer test shows that there are passengers with a problematic, criminal, security or anti-Israel background, the warning will be examined by a human factor, the GSS, the police or other law enforcement agencies, and it will decide whether to prevent the passenger from entering the country.
Under the bill, information on the rest of the passengers will remain available in the database for six months.
The information will then be stored and will only be accessible under special conditions.
At the end of five years, the information on the passengers whose entry has been approved will be deleted from the database. The explanatory memorandum to the law states that the database will be used by the state authorities for the purpose of combating terrorism and serious crime.
Passengers at Ben Gurion Airport, archive, Photo: Yehonatan Shaul
Improving security
It will also be used to improve civil aviation security;
To improve border control procedures and combat illegal immigration;
And for the purpose of protecting public health from the spread of epidemics.
The memorandum of law was prepared by an inter-ministerial team led by an advisory and legislative department in the Ministry of Justice, with the participation of the relevant government ministries and law enforcement agencies, and in coordination with the inter-ministerial steering team led by the Ministry of Justice.
The proposal comes in line with a 2020 government decision.
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