What’s at stake?

“It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away" – 1984 G. Orwell.

The threat of visual surveillance, in the era of the growing use of social networks is not a new threat. Nevertheless, the security orientated rhetoric that dominated the Israeli public discourse for decades allowed for outward surveillance mechanisms and technology to flourish. Having this trend to gradually seep inwards, given the limited geographical area and small population, might have devastating affects on privacy rights in Israel.

Cultivating fear has produced in the Israeli public a constant mode of "fight or flight", In this state-of-mind the idea of privacy takes a back seat. The result is far from limited to the practice of installing surveillance cameras. Paradoxically, Israel's heightened security situation that made its public indifferent to privacy concerns is also the reason that this same public is especially vulnerable to the harms of surveillance. In Israel, the military service is mandatory and many recruits served in highly sensitive positions. That type of positions makes them a target for monitoring purposes. Furthermore, many former recruits continue to be employed in the field of national security; That occupation constitutes them as "persons of interest" and thereby as targets for surveillance.

Thereby, as these are people who are at severe risk of being surveilled, they should not be callous about their privacy. In 2015, for example, there was an article in a popular Israeli magazine, warning Israeli LinkedIn users from revealing their army background as former employment experience in their LinkedIn profile - lest the phrase "headhunter" would apply to them in a more literal meaning.

What can we do?

As a practical matter I believe that the privacy administration in Israel should focus less on formal legal regulation, like it does nowadays, and more about educating users about the risks and opportunities they face in the digital age whether when walking in the street or surfing the net. This should be done either by investing directly in the promotion of privacy-orientated technology (for example grants to nonprofit organizations and software developers), or, politically, by initiating and incentivizing awareness and public dissection. A good example for the latter is the "Internet academy", an initiative of the Israeli Internet Association. The Internet Academy provides free lectures, articles and opinion essays on contemporary Internet based dilemmas, among others, privacy issues.