The European Commission has halted a proposal to allow Israel to access sensitive personal data on European citizens following concerns expressed by the Irish government.
Objections were levied by Ireland over the use of eight fake Irish passports by the alleged Israeli assassins of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
The Government believes data used in the forged documents was gleaned from the official inspection of travellers’ passports. Israel has neither confirmed or denied involvement in the assassination.
In an unexpected move the Commission said it would withdraw the application to effectively recognise Israel's data protection standards as being on a par with those enjoyed in the EU, thereby limiting the state's access to EU citizen's information.
Speaking to RTÉ today, Minster for Justice Dermot Ahern said: “Given the fact that information which was gleaned illegally from Irish passports…we had to put up some protest in relation to the continuance of transfer of data to Israel”.
“The existing data protection law in Israel only applies to auto processing. It doesn’t relate to manual processing which would possibly include transcribing of passport details by hand,” he added.