IsraelLawForeign companies with Israeli employees regularly ask the same question: can we install cameras in the office, monitor company emails, or use software to track productivity? The answer is yes — but within limits. Israeli law defines those limits specifically, and the courts have become more willing to enforce them. Two developments accelerated the shift: Amendment 13 to the Protection of Privacy Law, which came into force on August 14, 2025, and a National Labor Court ruling in March 2025 that set a binding three-stage test for workplace surveillance cameras. Both apply now, and both have teeth.
This guide covers the current rules for cameras, computers, GPS, and remote-work monitoring — along with what employees can do when those rules are broken.
1. The Legal Framework: Protection of Privacy Law and Amendment 13
The foundation of employee privacy law in Israel is the Hok HaHagana Al HaPrivatut — the Protection of Privacy Law 5741-1981. Section 2 of that law defines "privacy violation" broadly: it covers capturing a person's image or voice without consent in a setting where they reasonably expect privacy, unauthorized access to personal communications, and using personal information for purposes other than what it was collected for.
The regulator is the Privacy Protection Authority (PPA), known in Hebrew as the Reshut HaHagana Al HaPrivatut, which operates under the Ministry of Justice. Its workplace surveillance guidelines are not merely advisory — Labor Courts and civil courts treat them as the authoritative interpretation of the statute.
Amendment 13, in force since August 14, 2025, introduced four changes that directly affect how employers in Israel can monitor their workforce.
First, any processing of employee personal data — surveillance camera footage, computer monitoring logs, location data, biometric records — must now rest on a documented legal basis. Employee consent is technically one such basis, but the PPA has stated that consent obtained from an employee by their employer rarely qualifies as genuinely "free" given the power imbalance. In practice, employers need to identify and document a legitimate interest basis rather than rely on contractual consent clauses.
Second, employers must give employees and job applicants detailed written notices explaining what data is collected, on what legal basis, for what purpose, how long it is kept, and who receives it. A one-line policy statement buried in an employment contract no longer satisfies this.
Third, data minimization applies. Employers may collect only what is genuinely necessary for the stated purpose. Monitoring all employee computer activity "for security" will not hold up if the same security objective could be achieved with network-level threat detection rather than keylogging.
Fourth, the PPA's enforcement powers expanded considerably. It can now audit workplace data-processing practices without advance notice, issue binding remediation orders with fixed deadlines, and impose administrative fines of up to NIS 500,000 for company-level violations.
The Labor Court framework operates alongside the Protection of Privacy Law. Even where an employer's monitoring technically complies with the privacy statute, the National Labor Court may find that a monitoring regime so intrusive that it materially changes working conditions constitutes a fundamental breach of the employment relationship — potentially triggering constructive dismissal claims.
In Practice: Foreign companies that introduced productivity-monitoring software on Israeli employee computers between 2020 and 2024 should review those arrangements before the end of 2026. Amendment 13 to the Protection of Privacy Law (effective August 14, 2025) introduced a transition period that ends on February 14, 2027 for employers with existing data-processing operations — after that date, full compliance with the new documentation and notice requirements is mandatory, and the PPA has signaled it will begin enforcement audits in the technology sector in late 2026. The practical steps are: audit what data you currently collect from Israeli employees, document the legal basis for each category under Amendment 13 criteria, update your Israeli employee privacy notice, and review whether each monitoring tool meets the data minimization standard.
2. The National Labor Court Three-Stage Test
In a March 2025 ruling, the National Labor Court (*Beit HaDin HaArzi LeAvoda*) established a binding three-stage test for assessing whether employer surveillance — specifically camera placement — constitutes a significant deterioration in working conditions that amounts to constructive dismissal. The test applies to physical cameras in the workplace but its underlying principles have been cited by the PPA as applicable to other monitoring methods as well.
The three stages are:
At the first stage, the employer must identify a genuine, current business purpose: preventing theft, maintaining safety on a production line, protecting confidential data, controlling access to a secure area. A generalized desire to "keep an eye" on staff fails here. The purpose also has to be proportionate to how intrusive the monitoring actually is — a camera covering a server room is easy to justify on data security grounds; a camera aimed at an individual workstation to capture all screen activity throughout the day faces a much higher bar.
At the second stage, the court looks at where cameras are placed and what they capture in practice. Cameras in communal or semi-public areas — lobby, warehouse floor, production line, loading dock — sit in a different category from cameras aimed at individual desks, break rooms, prayer rooms, toilet areas, or lactation rooms. Monitoring that captures personal conversations, religious practice, or intimate behavior in areas where employees reasonably expect privacy is not defensible regardless of the employer's stated reason.
At the third stage, employees must be informed before surveillance begins, not after. The court drew a clear line between "informing" (telling employees cameras exist and why) and "obtaining free consent" (which, following Amendment 13, is essentially unavailable in an employment relationship). The employer's obligation at this stage is transparency. A camera that employees know about, positioned where the employer has a legitimate interest, is treated entirely differently from a covert installation.
In Practice: The March 2025 National Labor Court ruling arose from a case where an employer installed cameras covering individual workstations in an open-plan office and used the footage to monitor the amount of time each employee spent away from their desk. The court found this failed Stage 1 (the absence-monitoring purpose could have been served by a simple digital attendance system at a fraction of the intrusion), failed Stage 2 (individual workstation coverage captured personal calls, private computer screens, and conversations with colleagues), and failed Stage 3 (employees were informed the cameras were for "security" but not that they would be used for performance monitoring). The employee who brought the claim was awarded compensation equivalent to six months' salary on the constructive dismissal finding, plus NIS 50,000 in damages for the privacy violation under Section 29A of the Protection of Privacy Law.
3. CCTV Cameras in the Workplace
CCTV cameras (*ma'arechet matzlemot*) are lawful in Israeli workplaces — the law does not prohibit them, but does constrain where they can be placed, what they can be used for, and how the footage is managed.
Cameras in building entrances, exits, car parks, server rooms, cash-handling areas, production floors, and public-facing service counters are generally defensible — provided the employer can document the specific security or safety interest served.
The prohibited end is clear. Toilets, changing rooms, and shower facilities are off-limits outright under Section 2(3) of the Protection of Privacy Law. Prayer rooms and lactation rooms fall into the same category — the PPA has stated flatly that no legitimate business purpose could justify surveillance there. Break rooms and staff rest areas carry the highest scrutiny short of an outright ban; an employer would need a compelling documented reason plus explicit employee notice before installation. Continuous recording at individual workstations is permissible only in narrow regulated contexts such as financial dealing rooms with FCA or ISA oversight requirements, and even then covert use for performance monitoring is not.
Camera footage must be retained only as long as necessary for the purpose that justified installation. The PPA's workplace surveillance guidelines specify that retention beyond 30 days requires a documented justification tied to a specific incident or investigation. Footage stored indefinitely "in case it is needed" does not satisfy the data minimization requirement under Amendment 13.
Signage indicating that CCTV is in operation is mandatory. The absence of visible signage does not invalidate the footage for all purposes, but it strengthens a privacy violation claim and is itself a violation of Section 2 of the Protection of Privacy Law when the filming creates a reasonable expectation that surveillance is not occurring.
In Practice: Israeli retail employers — including foreign chains with Israeli stores — regularly face PPA audits triggered by employee complaints about cameras in changing room areas, prayer spaces, or break rooms. Following Amendment 13, the PPA issued a specific advisory in September 2025 warning retail employers that cameras positioned to cover any part of a changing area, even unintentionally, constitute a per se violation of Section 2(3) of the Protection of Privacy Law. The advisory stated that camera positions must be reviewed and documented annually, with a written record confirming the viewing angle and a map of areas covered. Administrative fines from PPA enforcement actions in the retail sector since August 2025 have ranged from NIS 75,000 to NIS 220,000. Employers using older analogue CCTV systems without digital audit logs of access to footage face particular exposure — the PPA requires that access to footage be logged and restricted to designated persons.
4. Computer and Email Monitoring
Monitoring of company-owned computer equipment — including email, internet browsing, application usage, and keystroke or screenshot logging — is one of the most contested areas of Israeli employment privacy law. The framework has evolved considerably since the Supreme Court's foundational ruling in Iscar Ltd v. Anonymous and has been reshaped further by Amendment 13.
On email: the Computer Law 5755-1995 prohibits unauthorized access to another person's computer or data. Employers own the infrastructure, but Israeli courts have held that a company email account with the employee's name on it creates a partial privacy expectation — especially for emails the employee marks as personal or sends outside working hours. The PPA allows monitoring of company email for legitimate purposes (detecting data leaks, investigating misconduct, verifying client communications), but the employer must disclose in advance that monitoring may occur and under what circumstances, have a clear acceptable-use policy in place, limit access to email content to the minimum number of people necessary, and treat targeted account review triggered by a documented incident very differently from blanket real-time surveillance of every message that goes through the server.
On productivity software: tools that log websites visited, time in applications, screenshots, or keystrokes require explicit disclosure — either in the employment contract or a standalone policy handed over before monitoring begins. Under Amendment 13, the legal basis must be documented. Monitoring that extends to personal accounts accessed on a company device during lunch, evenings, or weekends does not survive the proportionality test. The employer's interest in work performance stops at the workday.
On using monitoring evidence in proceedings: courts apply an exclusionary discretion. The Regional Labor Court regularly rejects monitoring evidence where the employee was not told monitoring was happening, or where the actual scope of monitoring went beyond what the disclosed policy described. Evidence from covert keyloggers or hidden screenshot tools is almost always inadmissible — and depending on how it was obtained, may be a criminal violation of the Computer Law in its own right.
In Practice: A significant number of foreign technology companies operating in Israel introduced endpoint monitoring tools — tracking keystrokes, taking screenshots every few minutes, or capturing web browsing history — during the remote work period from 2020 to 2022. Many of these tools remain installed on Israeli employees' computers today. Under Amendment 13's transitional provisions, employers who operated such systems without a documented legal basis must either regularize them (document the legal basis, update employee notices, and review proportionality) or discontinue them by February 14, 2027. Employment lawyers in Israel have seen a sharp rise in employee complaints to the PPA about monitoring tools since mid-2025. The PPA's response time to complaints has shortened following its expanded staffing post-Amendment 13, and investigation results are now typically communicated within 90 days of a complaint being filed. If a complaint triggers a PPA audit, all monitoring-related documentation will be required within 14 days of the audit notice.
5. GPS and Location Tracking
GPS tracking of employees is permissible under Israeli law in specific contexts but carries strict limitations. The lawfulness of GPS tracking turns on three factors: the nature of the device being tracked, whether the employee has been informed, and whether tracking extends beyond working hours.
Company vehicles. GPS tracking of company-owned vehicles used in the employee's work is the most clearly permissible form of location monitoring. Employers have legitimate interests in vehicle management (route optimization, fuel monitoring, verifying delivery completion) and in safety and security (theft prevention, emergency response). The PPA has approved GPS tracking in company vehicles provided employees are informed in writing before the tracking system is installed or before they begin using a tracked vehicle. The key limitation: tracking must be disabled — or data from the tracking system must not be accessed — during personal use periods. An employee who takes a company vehicle home for weekend personal use cannot be tracked during that personal period under the proportionality principle.
Mobile phones. Tracking location via a company-issued mobile phone during work hours is treated similarly to company vehicle tracking — permissible with disclosure and a legitimate business purpose (field workers, delivery staff, security personnel). An employer may not require an employee to install location tracking on their personal phone as a condition of employment. Requiring installation on a personal device as a condition of employment is likely to be found to constitute duress, invalidating any consent.
After-hours tracking. Tracking employee location outside of working hours — whether through a company device, vehicle, or any other means — is impermissible without a specific legitimate reason that extends to that period (on-call emergency response for a specific role, for example) and explicit, specific disclosure to the employee of the out-of-hours tracking arrangement. Continuous 24-hour GPS logging that retains data about employee movements during evenings and weekends is a violation of Section 2(7) of the Protection of Privacy Law.
In Practice: Employers in the logistics and delivery sector — increasingly including foreign-owned platforms operating in Israel — face the most complex GPS compliance requirements. The Ministry of Transport's regulations on commercial vehicle tracking (under the Motor Vehicles Ordinance) may require GPS installation for safety and regulatory compliance. Where GPS is mandated by regulation, the employer's legal basis under Amendment 13 is the legal obligation rather than legitimate interest — and the PPA has confirmed this satisfies the legal basis requirement. However, even regulation-mandated GPS systems may not be used to monitor employee movements outside the scope of the regulatory purpose. A logistics employer required by Ministry of Transport regulation to track vehicle positions for road safety cannot use that same system to monitor whether drivers take breaks in unauthorized locations, to assess individual driver productivity metrics, or to verify employees' claimed locations during disputes — those uses require a separate legal basis and employee disclosure.
6. Remote Work Surveillance: Limits on Home-Office Monitoring
The expansion of remote work in Israel created significant uncertainty about what employers could lawfully monitor when employees work from home. The National Labor Court's March 2025 ruling addressed this directly, and the PPA has followed with specific guidance on home-office monitoring.
The starting point is the constitutional protection of the home as a private sanctuary. Section 7 of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty protects the individual's privacy and freedom from arbitrary search. When an employee's home is also their workplace, the employer's monitoring interest does not extinguish the constitutional privacy interest in the home environment — it must be balanced against it, and that balance is weighted heavily toward privacy.
Monitoring output — documents created, code commits, tasks completed, client communications on work systems — is permissible and does not carry the same scrutiny as monitoring physical presence. Expecting employees to be reachable during defined working hours is management, not surveillance. Company-issued devices can be monitored during working hours under a disclosed acceptable-use policy, with the same constraints as in-office use. Scheduled video calls and manager spot checks are ordinary practice.
What the law does not allow is harder to summarize briefly, because the categories are quite different from each other.
Always-on webcams are out. The National Labor Court said so directly in its March 2025 ruling: requiring a remote employee to keep a webcam running continuously during working hours violates the Protection of Privacy Law. A continuous webcam captures far more than work — family members, personal spaces, private activity — and the PPA has described it as "the most intrusive form of remote monitoring short of physical access."
Remote desktop tools that allow the employer to view or take control of the employee's screen without the employee's knowledge and specific per-session consent are prohibited under Section 4 of the Computer Law 5755-1995 (unauthorized access to computer material).
Monitoring during rest breaks is not permitted. An employee on an authorized break at home is at home, not at work. The surveillance interest stops.
Ambient audio monitoring through a device microphone — continuously or periodically — is a criminal violation of Section 2(5) of the Protection of Privacy Law (unauthorized eavesdropping). There is no legitimate interest argument that survives this one.
In Practice: Several foreign companies with Israeli remote teams installed always-on webcam tools — sometimes described in their internal documentation as "virtual office" platforms — without adequate employee disclosure or consent. Following the National Labor Court's March 2025 ruling, Israeli labor lawyers have seen an increase in constructive dismissal claims from employees who found these tools disproportionately intrusive and left their positions as a result. The Labor Court has been willing to treat an always-on webcam requirement, imposed without prior disclosure, as a significant unilateral change in working conditions that entitles the employee to treat themselves as constructively dismissed under the Dismissal Compensation Law 5723-1963, Section 11 — with full severance entitlement and the right to bring additional privacy compensation claims under Section 29A of the Protection of Privacy Law of up to NIS 50,000 per violation without proving actual damage. Companies that currently use such tools should remove them from Israeli employees' contracts and devices, replace them with output-based performance monitoring, and issue updated privacy notices immediately.
7. Biometric Data: Fingerprint Attendance Systems and Face Recognition
Biometric attendance systems — fingerprint readers (*mataan etzba*), palm-vein scanners, and facial recognition systems used to log working hours — are subject to the strictest category of protection under Amendment 13. Biometric data is classified as "sensitive personal data" (*meida raguish*) under the amendment, along with health information, religious beliefs, and political opinions. Processing sensitive data requires not merely a legitimate interest but a specific legal authorization or, in some circumstances, explicit and genuinely free consent.
In an employment context, the PPA has stated that employee consent to biometric attendance monitoring is not genuinely free given the power imbalance between employer and employee, and that employers cannot make employment conditional on submitting to biometric identification where a less intrusive attendance method exists. This position was reinforced by a National Labor Court ruling in 2024 that found a requirement to provide fingerprints for a mandatory attendance system was an impermissible condition of employment.
The practical result: employers in Israel cannot mandate fingerprint or facial recognition attendance as the sole method of recording work time if the employee objects. The employer must offer an alternative — such as a PIN code, a physical swipe card, or a mobile app check-in — that does not involve biometric data. An employee who refuses biometric identification cannot be dismissed for that refusal alone, as it is the exercise of a legal right under the Protection of Privacy Law.
Where biometric systems are already installed, employers should review whether employees who were required to enroll before Amendment 13 were given a genuine choice. The transitional provisions of Amendment 13 require that all biometric data processing be reviewed and either regularized or discontinued by February 14, 2027. For biometric attendance systems where no alternative was offered, regularization likely requires either switching to a non-biometric system or obtaining genuinely voluntary consent — which, in the PPA's view, requires that the employee face no adverse consequence for declining.
In Practice: Construction and manufacturing employers with large numbers of foreign workers on B/1 work visas have been among the heaviest users of biometric attendance systems in Israel, often justifying them on the grounds of accuracy and fraud prevention. The PPA's guidance following Amendment 13 does not exempt foreign workers from biometric data protections — the Protection of Privacy Law applies to all persons present in Israel regardless of nationality or visa status. Employers in these sectors should prepare for employee requests to opt out of biometric identification systems and have a non-biometric alternative ready. Employers who cannot accommodate a non-biometric alternative — for example, construction sites where swipe cards create security risks — should consult with a privacy or labor lawyer before the February 2027 deadline about whether a documented legitimate interest argument is available, though the PPA has been skeptical of such arguments in the employment context to date.
8. Employee Rights and Remedies
An employee who believes their employer is monitoring them in a manner that violates Israeli law has several routes available, each with different timelines and outcomes.
Complaint to the Privacy Protection Authority (PPA). Any person whose privacy rights have been violated may file a complaint with the PPA at ppa.gov.il. The PPA investigates and may issue binding orders to the employer, impose administrative fines of up to NIS 500,000 for a company-level violation, and refer egregious cases for criminal prosecution under Section 5 of the Protection of Privacy Law. Following Amendment 13, the PPA's enforcement powers have expanded and the authority has stated publicly that workplace surveillance is a priority enforcement area for 2026. Filing a PPA complaint does not require legal representation and carries no filing fee.
Civil claim in the District Court. Section 29A of the Protection of Privacy Law allows a person whose privacy was violated to bring a civil claim for damages in the District Court. Importantly, the court may award damages of up to NIS 50,000 per violation without the claimant proving actual financial damage — a form of statutory damages designed to lower the barrier to enforcement. Where actual financial damage (lost earnings, medical treatment for psychological harm) is proven, higher awards are available. Multiple violations — multiple instances of unlawful CCTV footage, repeated access to personal email — may each generate a separate claim.
Labor Court claim. Monitoring so intrusive that it amounts to a fundamental change in working conditions supports a constructive dismissal claim before the Regional Labor Court (*Beit HaDin HaAzori LeAvoda*). The employee must resign and bring a claim within 60 days of resignation under the Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law or under the general labor law framework. Successful constructive dismissal claims triggered by unlawful monitoring have resulted in awards of full severance pay under the Dismissal Compensation Law 5723-1963 (one month's salary per year of employment), plus additional compensation for the privacy violation and the manner of dismissal.
Criminal complaint. Covert recording — a hidden camera in a toilet, a covert audio recording device, unauthorized access to a private email account — is a criminal offense under both the Protection of Privacy Law and the Computer Law. Criminal complaints are made to the Israel Police. The Protection of Privacy Law provides for up to five years' imprisonment for serious violations. Criminal proceedings in this area are rare but do occur, particularly in cases involving hidden cameras in bathrooms or changing areas.
In Practice: An employee who discovers unlawful monitoring — a hidden camera, an undisclosed keylogger, GPS tracking of a personal device — should take the following practical steps before resigning or confronting the employer directly. First, document the evidence: take photographs of any physical device, screenshot software running on the device, note the date and time. Second, consult an Israeli labor or privacy lawyer before taking any action — the sequence in which complaints are filed and evidence is preserved affects the strength of all downstream claims. Third, if the monitoring device is physical (a camera), do not remove or touch it, as this may complicate the criminal complaint. Fourth, file the PPA complaint and the Labor Court claim as close together as possible to preserve all remedies. An employee who first confronts the employer, accepts a settlement, and then later attempts to bring a PPA complaint may find the settlement is interpreted as a waiver of the privacy claim. Labour lawyers in Israel typically handle workplace privacy claims on a contingency or mixed-fee basis given the statutory damages available under Section 29A of the Protection of Privacy Law.