A Historic Ruling: Police Cannot Use Racial Profiling to Ask for ID

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First Petition 

On August 18, 2019, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Association of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, and the Public Committee Against Torture petitioned the Supreme Court with the demand that the court prohibit police from detaining people on the street and asking them to present identification when there is no suspicion that they have committed a crime. As part of the petition, we also called for the revocation of the "Procedure for Presenting Identification and Duty to Identify Before a Police Officer," which institutionalizes this illegal practice. 

The petition challenged the systematic and longstanding conduct of police officers stopping people on the street simply because officers felt that those stopped appeared "problematic." After stopping the individual (for which they offered no explanation or justification), police would demand that they present identification and then check information about them in the police database. We argued that this violates every person's right not to be treated by state authorities as a suspect and not to have their liberty restricted arbitrarily and without sufficient cause. Moreover, we asserted that this practice violates the right to dignity, the right to reputation, the right to privacy, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to equality. 

The petition pointed out that this practice is applied disproportionately against Ethiopian Israelis, Arabs, and people of Middle Eastern appearance. It is racial profiling, and results in humiliation and degradation, with serious social consequences. 

The Ruling 

On January 25, 2021 the Supreme Court issued a majority ruling that partially accepted the petition. It determined that the Identity Card Possession and Presentation Law authorizes the police to demand that a person present identification without suspicion of committing an offense only for the very narrow purpose of verifying information on the identity card or verifying whether a person possesses an identity card, "in order to avoid labeling people as suspects without cause." 

The court also ruled, contrary to the position of the police, that demanding identification involves detaining a person, and is therefore subject to the conditions that apply to detention under the law: the officer has a duty to identify themselves to the detained person and to explain the reason for the stop. 

The court further ruled that in the absence of reasonable suspicion, the police are not authorized to conduct additional police procedures (interrogation, checking details in the police terminal, etc.) beyond checking the identity card itself. This means that checking a person's details in the police terminal or other databases, including checking a person's criminal record, is prohibited when there is no reasonable suspicion that the person has done something wrong.  

The court ordered the police to amend, within 90 days, the procedure regulating officers' authority to demand identification from a person. 

HCJ 5471/19 Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. Israel Police; HCJ 2698/21 Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. Israel Police 

Attorneys: Anne Suciu (Association for Civil Rights in Israel), Nasreen Alian and Vardit Damri-Medar (Center for Clinical Legal Education at the Hebrew University), Eyal Abulafia (Tebeka) 

Post-Ruling 

On April 20, 2021, we filed a request for another hearing on the ruling. In the request, we argued that the ruling allowed the police to continue arbitrarily detaining people in order to check their identity, thus permitting a discriminatory and humiliating police practice to continue. 

The police also filed a request for a further hearing. Their reasoning was because of the part of the ruling that denied officers the authority to conduct additional police procedures during identification stops. The police argued that these activities are essential and basic tools, and without them police could not do their work. They also claimed that officers have authority to "converse" with any person when necessary; the person is not obligated to answer and is free to leave at any point. In our response, filed on June 22, 2021, we addressed, among other things, the blurring of the line between consent and coercion when a person is detained by a police officer, the limits of police authority as outlined in the law, and the necessity that reasonable suspicion be a prerequisite and necessary condition for detaining a person to check their identity and interrogate them. 

On May 12, 2021, the court granted the request of the police and postponed the effective date of the amended procedure to July 12, 2021. Then, on December 27, 2021, the court rejected the requests for further hearings and ruled that within 30 days, the prohibition on conducting additional policing as part of detaining a person to check their identity card would take effect. The police procedure would be amended accordingly. 

Second Petition 

In February 2022, the police published the new procedure regulating police authority to detain a person to check their identity. On January 8, 2023, ACRI again petitioned the Supreme Court, together with the Association of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, the Committee Against Torture, and Tebeka. We argued that the new procedure formulated by the police went against the court's ruling and exceeded the legal authority of the police.

The second petition raised three main points: 

1. The new procedure allows an officer to detain a person to check their identity under extremely broad circumstances. 

2. The new procedure completely ignores the ruling's instructions regarding the prohibition against taking additional policing actions. In fact, not only does the procedure contain no provision prohibiting the existing practice of conducting additional policing actions, several sections of the procedure even permit it. 

3. The new procedure ignores some of the limitations on the authority to detain a person as established by law. 

In the second petition, we argued that the police procedure leaves an arbitrary and discriminatory police practice in place that was invalidated by the Supreme Court, that it does not meet the requirement to regulate the exercise of authority in clear and detailed terms, and it fails both citizens and police officers. 

On May 2, 2024, after a hearing on the petition, the Supreme Court issued a conditional order instructing the police to explain why it should not revoke or amend four sections of the procedure.   

On December 14, 2025, the Supreme Court accepted the second petition and repealed two sections of the police procedure. One section that was repealed allowed the police to engage in racial profiling and also permitted checking a person's details in the police terminal without suspicion that the person had committed a crime. The ruling determined that in order to ask a person to present identification, the officer must have "reasonable grounds for suspicion" that the person has committed or is about to commit an offense, and "concern" alone is insufficient.

HCJ 244/23 Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. Israel Police 

Attorneys: Anne Suciu, Oded Feller and Nitsan Ilani (Association for Civil Rights in Israel), Nasreen Alian (Center for Clinical Legal Education at the Hebrew University), Eyal Abulafia (Tebeka) 

For links and a full list of legal correspondence, petitions, and articles in Hebrew, see here.