Written by: Haim Ravia, and Dotan Hammer
The Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved the Bill on Polic Access to Computer Material. The bill seeks to authorize courts to issue warrants allowing the police to covertly access computer material without the computer owner’s knowledge or presence of witnesses. The bill restricts the warrants only to the investigation and prevention of offenses punishable by more than 10 years of imprisonment, provided that the investigation cannot be conducted overtly. The bill’s preamble states that it “would provide the police with critical tools to effectively combat organized crime”.
The bill had originally failed to secure government sponsorship, leading to its presentation as a private bill by a member of the Knesset. Yet the governmental committee elected to advance the bill to a vote in the Knesset. The bill passed an unexpected and heated preliminary vote, which the opposition parties boycotted.
The decision to proceed with the bill disregarded the Attorney General’s objections regarding the exclusion of corruption-related offenses from the bill. The Attorney General explained that these exclusions would make the virtual domain a “haven” for corruption-related offenses, which would be outside the reach of a warrant to covertly access computer material for investigation purposes.
Click here to read the full text of the proposed bill (in Hebrew).
