Rights10/10/2026

Court Did Not Permit Family to Obtain Deceased Woman's Fingerprint From Biometric Database

The family of Adar Hoshen, who was killed at the Nova festival, sought to create a memorial piece of jewelry bearing her fingerprint. The District Court dismissed the administrative petition: existing law does not permit such biometric data to be provided to family members.

Key facts

•Case: The number was not specified in the source
•Court: The District Court; its exact name was not specified
•Decision: The administrative petition was dismissed
•Fingerprint retention period: Five years
•Monetary sums: None mentioned
•Date of the decision: Not specified in the source

The Family's Request

About two months after Adar's death, her mother, Galia, decided to order a piece of jewelry bearing her daughter's fingerprint. The family also sought to commemorate in this way Adar's father, Avtalion, who died more than ten years ago. The Biometric Database Management Authority at the Ministry of the Interior refused to provide the data because the law prohibits transferring a fingerprint to another person.

The Proposed Alternatives

With the assistance of the Legal Aid Department at the Ministry of Justice, the family proposed providing the fingerprint with a small, imperceptible defect that would prevent its practical use. Another option was to extract the data not from the database itself, but from the electronic chips in Adar's identity card and passport. The authorities rejected both proposals, stating that they did not eliminate the statutory prohibition.

Why the Court Refused

The District Court accepted the Ministry of the Interior's position that the Ministry has no discretionary authority to permit the disclosure of the fingerprint, even in exceptional circumstances. The Court acknowledged the case's difficult emotional aspect but ruled that it was bound by existing law, which is intended to maintain the confidentiality of biometric information and protect privacy. In the Court's assessment, the existing arrangement does not provide an appropriate response to special cases of this kind, and a solution is therefore possible only through legislative amendment.

The Data Will Be Preserved Temporarily

Despite dismissing the petition, the Court ordered the Ministry of the Interior not to delete the fingerprints of Adar and her father for five years. This was intended to give Galia time to pursue a legislative solution before the information is irreversibly destroyed. The family intends to continue the struggle on behalf of other families who may wish to preserve a similar memento of their loved ones.

What this means for you

The relatives of a deceased person cannot obtain that person's fingerprint from Israel's biometric database for commemorative purposes unless the law expressly permits such disclosure. Even a humanitarian purpose does not, in itself, grant the Ministry of the Interior or the Court authority to establish an exception. However, the temporary prohibition on deleting the data leaves the family an opportunity to pursue legislative change.

Find a lawyer for this topic

Case analysis based on court rulings