הזכות לפרטיות בעבודה: עיון מחודש בפרשת איסקוב-ענבר ויישומה

a decade ago, the Israeli National Labour Court issued a landmark decision regarding the protection of the right to privacy within the workplace in an era of new technologies –the case of Isakov-Inbar. This article analyses this precedent and its implementation and development by the Israeli Labour Courts,with the aim of learning whether and how the right to privacy at work is protected. Protecting the right to privacy has become extremely important in our current digital world, where nearly all workers’ acts are monitored or surveilled, and massive data on workers is collected. Methodologically, the study conducts a qualitative analysis of court decisions in this area given by Labour Courts in the past decade (51 court decisions). It shows that the principles established by the court in Isakov-Inbar are only partially implemented and more specifically: that the majority of judgements adopt a rough distinction between private and business data,and examine to a limited extent whether the right to privacy was infringed;that the principles of legitimacy and proportionality, transparency, and purpose are applied restrictively, and only rarely is the technology involved in this analysis; and that significant weight is given to the issue of consent, which raises difficulties both in terms of labour law theories and in terms of privacy law theories. The study also shows that employers do not suffer significant sanctions when they fail to respect their workers’ right to privacy; levels of compensation are quite low, and no further steps are taken to ensure compliance with privacy protection. The article argues that the Isakov-Inbar doctrine and its implementation should be revisited with respect to a number of central issues, and proposes ways in which the right to privacy at work can be better protected in the future.