Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

Reporting from Israel, legal consultant Dr. Omer Tene writes:

On July 28, 2010, the Israeli Supervisor of Banks, Rony Hizkiyahu, issued a letter to the CEOs of all local banks expressing concern over the banks' and their employees' use of online social networks, including both proprietary Web 2.0 tools and networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and YouTube, all of which are explicitly referred to in the letter.  The Supervisor of Banks, Israel’s banking regulator, requires banks to take steps to ensure data protection and information security, including having outside experts perform risk assessments, creating and enforcing policies for use of social networking tools as well as guidelines and procedures for implementation and audit, and devising a data security strategy to address increased risks to employee and customer data.  These instructions are in addition to the Supervisor of Banks Proper Conduct of Banking Business Regulation No. 357, Information Technology Management, as well as applicable data protection law and regulations.