Protection by virtue of Section 6 of the Law
- The defendants sought to rely on Section 6 of the law, about which the Supreme Court stated: "In this context, it must be shown that the invasion of privacy was not committed by way of a 'trivial act', since such an infringement will not confer a right to remedy... The intention of the section is to remove from the path nuisance claims, for which a reasonable person would not bother to go to court" (Civil Appeal 1697/11 A. Gottesman Architecture Ltd. v. Vardi, paragraph 24 (Nevo 23.1.2013); Additional Civil Hearing 4960/18 Seligman v. The Phoenix Insurance Company Ltd., paragraph 124 of the opinion of the Deputy President (Ret.), Judge H. Melcer (Nevo 4.7.2021)).
I do not accept the defendants' argument that this is a "substantive" infringement. Shteif's actions include responsibility for the deliberate hacking of the telephones, despite the fact that they are password protected. The actions of all the defendants include examining and analyzing personal content in a group setting, and even publishing clues regarding the personal content. These acts constitute a clear and profound violation of privacy. Therefore, the attempt to portray this intrusive chain of actions as "unsubstantiated infringement" is baseless and must be rejected.
Different from this are the few "tweets" that some of the defendants posted on the "Twitter" network. The main purpose of these tweets was to draw attention to the special broadcaster, but the violation of privacy included in them was minimal, if at all. Therefore, I determine that they do not amount to a permanent violation of Naveh's privacy In section 6 to the law.
Defenses of good faith by virtue of section 18(2) of the Law
- According to the defendants, their actions are protected under the permanent protections Section 18(2) of the law, as follows:
Steif: Sections 18(2)(b) - 18(2)(d) to the law.
Barkai: Sections 18(2)(a), 18(2)(b), 18(2)(d) to the law.
Defendants 3-6: Sections 18(2)(a), 18(2)(b), 18(2)(d), 18(2)(f) to the law.