The Tunisian parliament requested the withdrawal of the biometrics identification bill

Upon receiving requests from many members of parliament to amend the draft law, the Tunisian Ministry of Interior withdrew the biometrics identification bill from the Assembly of the Representatives of the People. Since the bill was introduced in October 2016, it was criticised by human rights defenders for threatening privacy and data protection for security reasons, particularly due to the lack of adequate safeguards to the privacy of Tunisian citizens holding the digitised national ID. Dr Chawki Gaddes, Head of the National Data Protection Authority, has also spoken about the challenges of storing more than 8 million Tunisian fingerprints in one database, which is antithetical to international human rights standards.