Are biometrics making us more or less secure?

Biometric issues are not something that I am especially familiar with. I know that the current American passports have chips in them, and I know that I am glad I still have an old one—a little less big brother, but other than that, its largely enigmatic. And so, I had Shai enlighten me.
In Israel, especially the government issued ID cards, which people get at age 16 and are meant to always carry (although don’t always in practice) are extremely forgeable. A bit worse than the old New Jersey driver’s license, the ID is pretty much a piece of paper with a photo, laminated. Makes sense that Israel would want to reform this; even NJ switched to IDs with holograms.
And so Israel decided to create a great data base with everyone’s information, and have it connected to ID cards and passports. The level of the technology that this data base would be set in would allow [somehow] for a camera to scan a crowd, be run through the system, and, through photographing individual’s faces, compile a total list of everyone in that crowd. More than just those in crowds, those who demonstrate and protest. Shai’s point against this, especially, was that then the political and police machine would be able to build profiles of average, law abiding people, the sort that usually only exist for those who have been through the justice system, would be able to profile people for their religious views, sexual orientation, political involvements, everything. Theoretically, if it remained secure, there isn’t anything necessarily inherently dangerous in this; the problem is, the individuals who would have access to this information would at their essence be human, and capable of human prejudices, human grievances, and flaws. And therefore, of abusing access to such information. Additionally, in the initial plan, the company who would be overseeing the database implied that they would have no issues with selling select information, plus the reality that databases can be compromised by skilled hackers. Just a few years ago, a great database was made of all dog owners in Israel, meant to keep track of vaccinations, etc. Eventually, it was hacked into, and now any random person can download the entire database. With the new biometric system, the stalking abilities would make facebook and twitter seem like jokes, very private.

Additionally, a complete implementation of biometrics into the IDs would compromise the security of Israelis abroad, and especially of future Mossad (Israeli FBI/CIA) agents. If the database were compromised, then Israelis traveling abroad would be sitting ducks to those who would wish to kidnap or target Israelis (and less face it, unfortunately that is a real possibility). As for the Mossad agents, even if their files were deleted after they became agents, Israelis get IDs at 16, and many get passports earlier; even if at age 25, 30 or whatever their file was erased, their preexisting information would still be available, and endanger their secrecy, and security.

It makes sense that the easy argument for the other side is that, anyone who is law abiding should have nothing to fear, as long as they are not doing things they would wish to hide; additionally, this system would make the justice system in certain ways more able and capable of solving crimes. However, even more than people, computer systems are fallible, no matter how strongly we rely on them.