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Data Privacy
in Israel
Israel was an early adopter of privacy and data protection legislation. The Protection of
PrivacyLaw1981(PrivacyLaw) is themain Israeli lawdealingwithprivacy,dataprotection
and databases. In addition, privacy rights in Israel have held quasi-constitutional status
since 1992 under the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.
The Privacy Law is supplemented by various regulations and court decisions. The
Israeli Law Information and Technology Authority (ILITA) has functioned as Israel's
data protection authority since 2006 and has issued a number of detailed directives. In
addition, certain sector-specific laws provide additional protection for medical, genetic,
psychological treatment, financial, credit and other information. Those familiar with data
protection laws in the European Union will find certain core principles of Israeli data
protection law extremely familiar; however Israeli law does have a number of unique
characteristics.
The Privacy Law prohibits an infringement of the privacy of any person without that
person’s consent, it provides for both civil and criminal liability for an infringement
of privacy, and it identifies a range of activities which, if carried out without consent,
constitute breaches of privacy. These include the following, among others: breach of a
legal or contractual privacy obligation, disclosure or use of personal information other
than for the purpose for which it was provided, publishing matter obtained by means
of a breach of certain privacy rights, publishing matter relating to a person’s sex life,
state of health or private conduct and harassment or spying on or tracking a person in
a manner likely to harass.
The definition of “person” under the Privacy Law only includes natural persons. While
the Privacy Law's privacy, data protection and database provisions do not by their terms
apply to corporations or other legal entities, under case law corporations are entitled to
limited privacy rights. A “database” is defined in the Privacy Law as “a collection of data,
stored by magnetic or optical means and intended for computer processing.”
Under the Privacy Law, personal data may be used only for the purpose for which it was
provided, and data included in databases requiring registration may only be used for the
Those familiar with data protection laws in the European Union will find certain
core principles of Israeli data protection law extremely familiar; however Israeli
law does have a number of unique characteristics.