Israel: a new national biometric database threatens privacy

The Israeli government is looking to regulate the legal status of biometric national IDs, travel documents and passports, but a draft bill on biometric identification, recently introduced, goes one step further than legislation adopted in the more than 40 countries.
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The new Israeli Copyright Law of 2007

On Monday, November 19, 2007, the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) enacted a new Copyright Law, which represents a complete transformation of Israeli intellectual property law.The new law introduces numerous changes. Some of the most prominent changes in the new law are summarized here. Full Article

A While Elephant

It's a decade since the Israeli Computers law was enacted. Is it the right law (no), should we blame only the law for the lack of enforcement in its field (no) and what should we do next? some brief conclusions from the short history of Computers Law. Full Article

Is An Internet Site A Newspaper?

As regards the liability of a publisher pursuant to section 11 of the Defamation Law, 5725-1965, an Internet site is a newspaper, despite the fact that according to that section a newspaper means printed matter reproduced on a printing press (CC 145/00, Eliahu Weissman v. Hagai Golan et al). Full Article

Global Business? Global Liability!

The question of jurisdiction raises issues that are at odds with the nature of Cyberspace. Whilst the Internet by definition lacks a location, under Israeli law, the court, in considering its jurisdiction, will be moved to decide the "location of the act or omission". Full Article

The Registration Of Another's Trade Mark As A Domain Name - Prevention Of Access To Business

The registration of a domain name that is the same as another person's trade mark, thereby preventing the competitor from using his trade mark for the purpose of on-line activity, commits the commercial wrong of unfair interference. A recent judgment of the District Court of Tel Aviv has applied the tort to the Internet world for the first time. Full Article

The Liability of a Certification Authority Pursuant To the Israeli Electronic Signature Law

On 26th March 2001 the Knesset approved the Electronic Signature Law, 5761-2001 on second and third reading. The Law regulates the evidential status of electronic signatures, lays down the effect of electronic certificates (which confirm that a person has a particular signature verification device - the on-line equivalent of an identity document) and provides how a certification authority, which issues electronic certificates, should act.

Coincidentally, only a few days earlier Verisign, which holds 97% of the electronic certificate market around the ... Read more

The Relationship Between Privacy And Software Licences

The registration of a domain name that is the same as another person's trade mark, thereby preventing the competitor from using his trade mark for the purpose of on-line activity, commits the commercial wrong of unfair interference. A recent judgment of the District Court of Tel Aviv has applied the tort to the Internet world for the first time. Full Article

Judge Hashin: Internet Surveys Are Not Reliable

An Internet survey is unreliable by its very nature - held The Chairman of the Elections Committee, Supreme Court Judge Mishal Hashin: "People who take part in it have sought in advance to participate in it and all agree that there neither was nor is any control over the identity of those people... the participants in the survey do not constitute a proper representative sample." In the Judge's opinion, an election survey is "election propaganda" within the meaning of the Elections Laws. He therefore issued an order prohibiting the publication of an Internet survey on elections day (TBM 23/2001, One Israel v. Ma'ariv Internet Ltd et al, not yet published). Full Article

The Battle for Email

The State Attorney, Edna Arbel, recently (May 2000) laid down policy that email that is not in the possession of an Internet service provider but is likely to pass through its computers in the future, can only be seized, kept and copied after an appropriate order has been obtained by virtue of the Secret Monitoring Law, 5739-1979. Arbel thereby accepted the position of the ISP, Netvision Ltd, in legal proceedings conducted by it against the State, which was trying to get hold of email by virtue of a routine search order issued by the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court. Full Article