In this issue, the employer's property right, on the one hand, from which his management prerogative is derived, and the employee's right to privacy clash on the other. In order to balance these constitutional rights and to examine whether the installation of cameras in the workplace by the employer constitutes an invasion of the employee's privacy, the labor courts are assisted, inter alia, by tests of good faith, reasonableness and proportionality and by auxiliary tests designed in accordance with these principles" (see: Yossi Rahamim and Tamir Kedmi, Labor Law in Practice, Vol. 1, pp. 612-613 (2023) (hereinafter: "Labor Law in Practice") and the references therein; Emphasis in the original - V.O.L.).
- Later on, in their book Labor Law, the authors discuss the principles in the Isakov case and the Qalanswa case. These are the derivative principles: whether the placement of cameras in the workplace was done for a proper purpose; whether the harm to the employee is proportionate and minimal; What is the location of the cameras in the workplace; and whether the employer will inform its employees about the installation of the cameras. In their book, the authors also refer and elaborate, inter alia, on the guidelines of the Privacy Protection Authority of the Ministry of Justice (hereinafter: the "Authority"), which published in 2017 an appendix to guidelines regarding the installation of cameras in the workplace by employers (hereinafter: the "Privacy Protection Authority Directive"). This is in continuation of the general directive published by the Ministry of Justice's Law, Technology and Information Authority in 2012, which deals with the use of security and surveillance cameras, as well as the databases of images captured in them.
- As part of the 2012 directive, the Authority published a directive detailing the impact of the installation of surveillance cameras on the entire population, as well as the obligations imposed on camera installers in the public sphere by law (Registrar of Databases Directive 4/2012 "Use of Security and Surveillance Cameras and the Databases of Images Recorded in Them" (dated October 21, 2012). Following this, in 2017 the Authority published another document clarifying the position of the Registrar of Databases with regard to the placement of cameras in the workplace (see: Directive of the Registrar of Databases 5/17 "Use of Surveillance Cameras in the Workplace and in the Framework of Labor Relations" (dated October 17, 2017) (hereinafter: the "Directive").
- The ISA's directive is largely based on the judgment in the Isakov case, and it defines that its important determinations "regarding the privacy space that accompanies the employee, the employer's obligation to act subject to the principle of proportionality and to examine alternative technologies that are less violative of privacy, as well as the rulings regarding the employer's duty of transparency towards the employee and the question of the meaning and conditions of the employee's consent to the violation of his privacy in the framework of an employment relationship, are of course also valid with regard to the use of surveillance cameras" (see: Section 11 of the Directive).
In accordance with these principles, the guidelines emphasize that even the existence of an obligation or permit by virtue of a certain law to install the cameras does not detract from the employer's obligation to respect the employee's right to privacy, and to conduct surveillance subject to the principles of reasonableness, proportionality, good faith and the duty of fairness.