The Right of Privacy in the Israeli Law

The Right of Privacy in the Israeli Law

The definition of the term "privacy" is a complicated and difficult task even for the best jurists in our country.  This question has brought not once in front of our court which is required to find the balance between satisfying individual deserves protection and conservation of the other human rights.

The Privacy Act 1981 prohibits harm to a person's privacy. Section 2 of the Act narrows the ban to eleven alternatives such as tracking and spying after a person or using private information about a person affairs or for a different purpose for which it was delivered.

Section 2(1) of the Privacy Act states that "tracking or trailing a person in a wat that may disturb him, or any other harassment" are a violation of the right to privacy. The legislature and courts have encountered many questions regarding the right's limits which depends on one's character.  

The tern "other harassment" remained unclear and it was up to the judges to interpret its meaning.

The leading ruling in that matter determined that the law purpose indicates that we should interpreted "other harassment" narrowly. There is no intention to see any act of violence as one that harms the right of privacy but only acts that are relative to the terms "tracing" and "detective" which appears at the beginning of the section.

It was also determined that a violation of privacy in general exists when an act may harm a person serenity and safe feeling which can damage his lifestyle.  

However, that statement was determined before the constitutional revolution in our country which raised the status of the right to privacy. Since than we can see that the judges are torn between the important legal ruling and the need to provide a wide protection for the right. The court system today preserves the legal ruling and perform the expansion when the case circumstance requires and not significantly harm other human rights.  

Section 2(9) of the Privacy Act states that "the use of information regards one's personal affairs without his promotion" is a violation of the right to privacy.

Our courts required to decide what is included inside of "private affairs" and hoe to define them. One judge thought that we should accept a wide definition which includes even the minor details like address, phone number. Work place and so on. The other judge states that there is a need to applied a more restrictive approach and determined the term range carefully under the circumstance of each case individually.  

Both approaches are highly quoted but it seems that most of the jurists agrees with the first one.  

After we set that there is a violation of the right to privacy we should pay attention to section 18 of the Privacy Act which guarantee some defense to the defendant such as acting in good faith or the lack of option to know about the possibility of harm.

Moreover, in the Israeli law there is a threshold which destined to prevent minor acts from showing up in court. That threshold appears in the 6 section of the Privacy act and the courts are doing impeccable work distinguishing between trivial matters and important ones.