Thus, the starting point of the application for approval is what leads to the conclusion that it does not fall within the scope of Item 1, since the very essence of the lawsuit concerns the fact that Facebook violates the privacy of those who are not its customers, and this is indicative of the distance between it and Item 1 and the artificiality of the attempt to bring it to its limits.
- Beyond what is required, I will note with respect to the claims raised by the Applicant regarding the significance of the use of information by technology giants that the legislature appears to be aware of this issue. A bill is currently pending, according to which a class action will be allowed for the cause of invasion of privacy in the framework of an individual that will be added to the addendum, but this bill has not yet been passed.
- For the sake of completeness, I will bring the explanatory notes relevant to the said bill:
"It is proposed to add to the second addendum to the Law a detail that allows the filing of class actions on the ground under the Protection of Privacy Law... Currently, a claim on a cause of action under the Protection of Privacy Law does not constitute a separate cause of action in the Second Appendix to the Law, and therefore a class action for violation of privacy can only be filed when it is made within the framework of one of the relationships in the second Appendix, for example, a dealer and a consumer. However, not every claim for invasion of privacy falls into one of these relationships, and today in these cases it is not possible to file the claim as a class action..."
"The great importance of allowing class actions to be filed for invasion of privacy, which do not fall into one of the relationships in the second addendum, arises in the digital age, in which personal information has become a currency for a merchant and its economic value is increasing. Today, many parties hold information about individuals even when there is no contractual relationship between the parties, for example, when information is sold to another commercial entity or the source of the information is an unlawful violation of privacy. Therefore, it seems that many of the violations of privacy are in line with the basic logic that led to the enactment of the Class Actions Law, in part due to the following characteristics: in many cases, the separate financial damage to each data subject (user or customer) is less than the threshold that incentivizes him to initiate a proceeding on his own; the profit on the side of the violations may be great; sometimes the wrongs are committed against a large group of data subjects; many of the violations are committed by large corporations. Certainly those that provide the popular services that the public uses. In these cases, the power disparities between them and the data subjects are significant and the practice of using personal information is widespread and carries significant risks, including with regard to the maintenance of databases. However, in accordance with the recommendation of the Inter-Ministerial Team's report, and following the concern that the addition of this detail may exacerbate the problem of frivolous claims or minor claims, it was decided to dedicate Item 18 to the more serious violations of the Protection of Privacy Law and the Protection of Privacy Regulations (Information Security)" (Proposed Class Actions (Amendment No. 16) 5784-2024, H.H. 1785, at pp. 1285-1286) (emphasis added A.R.B.).