New Developments In Employee Privacy Rights At Work

Co-authored by Orly Gerbi, Maayan Hammer-Tzeelon, and Marian Fertleman of Herzog, Fox & Neeman

Recent decisions in Israel have looked at the balance between employee privacy and surveillance by employers. The takeaway messages are that to be lawful, any intrusions on employee privacy must be reasonable, proportionate, fair, and undertaken in good faith.

There have been two recent developments on the issue.

The first is the National Labor Court's recent decision on appeal in Histadrut v. Municipality of Qalansawe. The court overturned a lower court's decision that an employer's requirement for employees to clock in and out of work using their fingerprints on a biometric attendance clock was legitimate.