The Nazareth District Labor Court has determined, in a landmark ruling, that an employer may not access his employees' e-mail boxes without their explicit consent. Overturning a previous ruling by the Tel Aviv District Labor Court, Judge Chaim Armon said that an employer could not take such action on the basis of "implied consent" by the employee. The judge also ruled that an employer did not have the right to go through his employees' recycle bins.
The right of employers to monitor their staff's email correspondence is an issue which has not been addressed directly by the Israeli legislature so far. Under the present situation, an employer wishing to access his employees' email must ensure he is not violating two laws - the Protection of Privacy Law (5741-1981), and the Wire Tapping Law (1979-5739). In a ruling in a case brought last summer, Tel Aviv district Labor Court Judge Sigal Davidow Motola Tel Aviv ruled that "the issue under consideration is whether the employee expected to be entitled to privacy in his e-mail correspondence, or whether he knew, either explicitly or by inference, that his correspondence could be viewed by management or other employees." This ruling is now being appealed in the National Labor Court.
The Nazareth Labor Court is hearing a case involving Rani Fischer, an engineer at Pazgaz subsidiary Waterpath, who is seeking a ruling ordering his employer to remove his email correspondence from its affidavits to the court, since the accessing of these represented a violation of his privacy. Waterpath claims Fischer was not entitled to privacy over the correspondence because he had been conducted it on the company's computer, which should have been used for work-related purposes only. The company added that some of the correspondence in question had been found in Fischer's recycle bin.
Judge Armon said in his ruling that employees' e-mail correspondence sometimes includes personal matters, and that "as a consequence, any person using the network can be considered as expecting a reasonable amount of privacy and that his correspondence is subject to protection from intrusion, unless he has explicitly waived such a right."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 15, 2008
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