The accelerated development of technology, the sweeping transition to cloud data storage and the use of software systems (SaaS), have created a point of friction between individual rights and the needs of criminal investigation, when law enforcement authorities demand that technology companies hand over client information stored on their servers. This raises weighty questions regarding the limits of governmental power, the right to privacy, jurisdiction, and complex legal questions about how to deal with such a demand.
Section 43 of the Israeli Criminal Procedure Ordinance empowers a judge (and such a warrant is issued at the request of the police without receiving the opposing party's position) to order a person to present or produce an "object" which is assumed to be in his possession or control, if its presentation is necessary or desirable for the purposes of an investigation or trial. The definition of the term "object" currently also includes computer material, so that in principle the section may certainly apply to information held by a technology company. Case law, led by the Gilad Sharon holding, interpreted the phrase "in his possession or control" broadly, so that it includes not only physical possession but also control and accessibility that allow a person to reach the object and hand it over. However, it is important to emphasize that this holding focuses on the relevance of control or accessibility to the information and does not explicitly determine that the mere presence of a computer server outside Israel automatically establishes territorial jurisdiction. Thus, a company managing a database is not immune in advance against the warrant, but territorial jurisdiction, whether the information is indeed under its control and whether the scope of the demand is necessary for the investigation, must be examined individually.
In a case discussed in the Supreme Court in May, 2026, it concerned an interview conducted by journalist Omri Assenheim on the subject of the investigation regarding the suspicion that Jonathan Urich and Eliezer Feldstein committed criminal offenses against State security together with Israel Einhorn (AKA, the German "Bild" newspaper affair) and a late-night meeting of Feldstein with Tzachi Braverman, Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Netanyahu, about which Feldstein claimed that Braverman updated him on a covert investigation, showed him a note with names of suspects and said that he had the ability to "extinguish the investigation". The police issued a warrant demanding the handover of all the raw material that formed the basis of the interview, but the Supreme Court found that a third party holding information and required to hand it over is entitled to object to the warrant and the warrant will be examined against the other interests jeopardized by it. The Supreme Court held that the police do not have the right to demand a broad and unlimited warrant which is in the nature of a "fishing expedition - and not with a rod but with a trawl" and it must show relevance or necessity to the investigation and that it has exhausted all alternative ways. As the Supreme Court held in the Jonathan Urich affair, even a regular computer and smartphone constitute a concentrated database of sensitive and personal information of third parties and searching them may fatally harm the privacy of those third parties.
It is important to note that a database holder, and even its managers and directors personally, may be liable to third parties whose privacy was harmed as a result of a failure to object to a search warrant, and certainly when it involves a technology company that hands over to the police information of (or about) third parties located on its servers. Therefore, when a company receives a broad warrant for the handover of information, it is important that it act immediately through a criminal lawyer with expertise in the technological field in order to act with the required caution and prevent its exposure to its clients.