Can an Israeli employer ask a job applicant for a criminal record extract?

The 2019 statute replaced a 1981 law and tightened matters considerably. It works by controlling who may receive register information at all, naming the entitled recipients and routing requests through the police register rather than through the individual. An employer outside those categories has no lawful way to obtain the data, so asking the candidate is both useless and exposed to sanction. Rehabilitation periods run alongside this: once the prescribed years have passed an entry is deleted or restricted, and a person may lawfully answer that they have no record. The Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law 5748-1988 supplies a second layer of protection where a rejection based on background also touches a protected characteristic, as our guide on workplace discrimination in Israel explains.

Foreign nationals interviewing for Israeli roles sometimes offer a police clearance certificate from home, which sits outside the register law but still creates problems. An employer that collects one is holding sensitive personal data governed by the Protection of Privacy Law 5741-1981 and needs a lawful basis, a defined purpose, and a retention limit. Immigration is worth separating out, because the Population and Immigration Authority does require police certificates for visa and Aliyah applications, and that is a state process rather than an employment one. A candidate asked for a record during an interview can decline and point to the statute without prejudicing the application.

From the full guide: Employee Monitoring and Workplace Privacy in Israel: What Employers Can and Cannot Do

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