Court in Session / In the wake of Big Brother - Haaretz

Subscribe to Print Edition

Tue., December 18, 2007 Tevet 9, 5768

Israel Time: 11:24 (EST+7)

web haaretz.com

Back to Homepage

Rosner's Domain

Diplomacy

Defense

Jewish World

Opinion

National

Print Edition

Advertising

Books

Arts & Leisure

Business

Real Estate

Easy Start

Travel

Week's End

Anglo File

Hanukkah

del.icio.us

Digg It! new

Last update - 11:15 06/12/2007

Court in Session / In the wake of Big Brother

By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Israel, ACRI, Health Ministry

For several years now, the Health Ministry has been planning the establishment of a National Health Registry that would contain all the medical information that has been accumulated on all Israel's residents at every medical treatment location. Naturally, this plan raises the question of privacy. Will every doctor or nurse at every health care clinic or emergency room be able to view the entire medical and mental health history of every patient, even if express permission for this has not been granted? Which bodies will be allowed to obtain information from the database? How can this sensitive information be protected from falling into unauthorized hands? The Association for Citizens Rights in Israel (ACRI), which will next week mark Human Rights Week, decided to include the struggle for safeguarding privacy in its annual report, which will be published next Sunday.

"Such a database is dangerous," says Attorney Avner Pinchuk, who heads ACRI's protection of privacy activities. "It is a resource that everyone will want to get their hands on - the defense establishment, the National Insurance Institute and the tax authorities, and it will also be a target for hackers and leaks.

"There was a committee that discussed the ethical principles, but it hit an impasse, and now the Health Ministry is planning to embark on a pilot without any legislation. The most blatant thing is the issue of principles. They say, 'We have the technology; we can build such a database.' This is an example of doing something only because they can - planning based on the ability of the system's technology, without thinking how to design it in keeping with the ethical needs or standards of privacy that we would want."

	Advertisement

The medical information database is not the only problem - and not even the most pressing one. There is the wiretapping conducted by the police, which is loosely supervised by the courts and even more loosely by the Knesset; the bill for allowing access to communications data - currently in the process of being legislated, which will facilitate the relaying of data from the cellular, Internet and telephony companies to the police for investigation and tracking purposes; the invasion of the privacy of job seekers and employees by their employers; forced polygraph testing; e-mail scanning by employers, and the requirement that jobseekers show employers a printout of their police record.

Pinchuk has been losing sleep over all these, too, and says that they should be keeping all Israeli citizens up at night.

In 2006, the police carried out 1,128 wiretappings, a 25-percent increase over the previous year. Of the 1,255 petitions for wiretapping submitted by the police to the courts, only 7 were denied. All in all the police eavesdropped on 778 suspects and witnesses, on 1,205 telephone and cell phone lines.

"Concerning the wiretapping," says Pinchuk, "they are looking at what they can already see - focusing all their attention on the wiretapping by the police. But we have no idea how much wiretapping is being done by the defense establishment.

Just recently the existence of a center for eavesdropping on all international calls was publicized.

It was on Hahashmona'im Street in Tel Aviv, and only lately was shut down by the military censor, because there was a consensus that it was unnecessary.

"What bothers me is not that it was shut down, but rather that I cannot rely on the declaration that such activities are not continuing today."

The situation in the job market is not much better. It turns out that the companies that distribute cell phones to their workers sometimes use these devices to track the employees' movements.

"There is such a thing as a cellular trace," says Pinchuk.

There are company technicians who provide customer service at the client's homes.

Four years ago, the communication minister notified the Knesset that the cellular companies licenses were supposed to regulate this matter, but the development of new technologies creates new challenges for privacy advocates. ACRI has received calls from workers whose employers have been tracking them.

"People received phones from their workplaces," relates Pinchuk, "and were asked what they had been doing in such and such a place, and that was on their day off."

Violations of privacy in the labor market are the result of the power gap between employers and employees, explains Pinchuk.

Even when employees' privacy is invaded, they are often afraid to take action, as turning to the Labor Court will lead to an even wider publication of their private affairs.

"This includes the installation of hidden cameras in the workplace," says Pinchuk. "In instances when the cameras reveal things that make the employee uncomfortable, he will ask for such evidence not to be submitted during a trial, due to the infringement of his privacy.

"The majority of invasion of privacy instances - those that involve eavesdropping or hidden cameras that do not come up with anything, but are still an invasion of privacy - are not even addressed."

An increase in demands by potential employers that jobseekers present a printout of their police record has led to a new procedure.

Instead of forbidding such requests, the police decided to differentiate between the record of actual convictions, if any, and the record of investigations that ended without charges being filed. No employer has a right to demand the latter.

This year the police therefore began including the words, "end of printout," at the bottom of the record page that any citizen can request from the police, such that a jobseeker can give an employer only part of his police file, without disclosing the fact that it does not include all the pages.

Bookmark to del.icio.us


	Organic memory
	Israeli research is among '50 most significant scientific breakthroughs in 2007.'


	Floating the PA
	International donors pledged $7.4 billion to help boost the PA economy .




1.	Until the cameras are in dressing rooms	21:47	\|	Global Citizen	06/12/07

2.	#1: I disagree, you are too trusting of the "authorities"	11:08	\|	hk	18/12/07

Today Online


	Bradley Burston: Killing the Palestinian who wishes you dead
	Responses: 7


	Rosner's guest: PA's goal is destruction of Israel
	Responses: 19


	Yoel Marcus: Israel doesn't need a new Vietnam called Gaza
	Responses: 26


	Officials: Israel to allow construction in W. Bank settlements
	Responses: 60


	IDF strikes kill ten Jihad men in 12 hours in Gaza, W. Bank
	Responses: 129


	Editorial: Israel can't ignore warnings of PA economic collapse
	Responses: 2

Rosner's Domain

The more Jews complain about Huckabee...(What to Read)

Guest: Leader of the Zionist Organization of America on post-Annapolis Mideast

Without the Reform movement in Israel, there's no Reform movement

So, Should American Jews have a voice in shaping Israel's policies?

More Headlines
11:19 IDF kills at least 10 Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza, W. Bank


03:29 Officials: Israel to allow construction in existing W. Bank settlements


05:27 Rights Group: IDF isn't enforcing law on troops in W. Bank, Gaza


10:47 Knesset okays establishing 'Big Brother' database for Police


10:00 Remaining Jews in Russia and Ukraine are 'proud to be Jewish'


23:57 Newly appointed U.S. Mideast envoy to visit Israel Tuesday


01:46 Dispensation given to ultra-Orthodox for limited Internet use


05:14 State Prosecutor urges officials to speak up in probes into IDF


06:22 First stage of Haifa's urban mass transit project to open Tuesday


02:51 Gazans: IDF restrictions deny us of animals for holiday sacrifice