Privacy Talk with Lior Etgar, Partner at Erdinast, Ben Nathan, Toledano & Co: What will bring the new privacy law amendment in Israel?
“This interview has been recorded on 5th August 2024 and discusses privacy and data protection legislation in Israel”
- Why did you start privacy and data protection law career?
- What is the uniqueness of your law firm?
- What will bring the new privacy law amendment in Israel?
Kohei: Hello everyone. Thank you for joining privacy talk. I’m so glad to have Lior from Israel, the exclusive lawyer in data protection and privacy space.
So, Lior, thank you for joining us today.
Lior: Thank you for having me nice to be here.
Kohei: First of all, you like to share his profile.
Lior advises on various aspects of GDPR and Israeli privacy law, working closely with businesses to improve their information governance in this rising field.
The practice includes advising on compliance, privacy aspects in commercial agreements and corporate transactions, internal policies, organizational measures, engagement with vendors and other third party users; also in life-science and online companies.
Lior also provides day-to-day legal advice on corporate, securities and commercial law, mostly to technology and life-science startups, and advising entrepreneurs in various types of business transactions.
So again, it’s a pleasure to meet with you here.
- Why did you start privacy and data protection law career?
Lior: It’s my pleasure to be here. Yes, what I am doing is, I’m head of data protection and privacy practice, EBN, Erdinast, Ben Nathan, Toledano & Co is a large and known law office in Tel Aviv.
And this practice, actually, this is my startup. I came here to this office to establish the practice, and the founder of this field here. It’s a great time to be part of the privacy community in Israel because we are going through an important reform these days, we’ll talk about it soon.
And yes, data protection is my passion. Before that I was a corporate lawyer dealing with high tech and M&A and even securities. But somewhere after GDPR broke out in the world, I it caught my attention and the rest is history.
This is what we’re doing. Are working closely with Israeli companies in privacy compliance and day to day, issues and then the commercial engagements relating to data or around that data, and a lot that we are also working in cybersecurity incidents in Israel, reporting duties to the different privacy protection authority.
And of course, IT agreements are also part of this practice, eventually everything that comes with complexities over data in commercial and day to day business we’re leading and of course, M&A transactions and high tech transaction investment transactions that involve privacy due diligence.
This is also our part. Every transaction today almost involves some sort of data protection and privacy compliance issues. So we are there as well.
Kohei: Yeah. That’s very amazing, and you kindly explain that your legal firm is doing it with the startup company as well. So could you share about a bit of your history as well? And maybe you became a legal expert.
So are there any opportunities to become a lawyer to support some of the companies? So that’s very helpful. You shared your history about it.
- What is the uniqueness of your law firm?
Lior: So as I said before, I came from the commercial arena, as a corporate lawyer, and that is when I came to data protection and privacy, was quite natural, because it has a very strong stronghold in commercial law.
I think that when it comes to constant disputes and litigation. There are some lawyers that also were coming from there for privacy, but I think it’s a very different approach. Eventually we are enabling special lawyers, the Privacy Council.
We’re enabling processing and sharing of data; we are enabling using data as be part of transactions and monetization of data. So we are actually enablers, and we are trying to build and try to enable data to move from one side to another, to monetize it or to use it wisely, and all of those still to detect the privacy rights of people that are subject.
Kohei: Thank you for sharing. It’s very important to work on data protection from the legal perspective at this moment. You belong to a very exclusive law firm at this moment, and as you explained at the beginning, could you share about your law firm, especially for any unique points that you are providing to the clients and also to yourself? Then could you share about it?
Lior: Sure, and well, first of all, at EBN, we’re very known and acknowledged law firm there in Israel, and we’re working with all the big actors in Israel, but we also work closely with small start up companies.
We are working with global companies and other foreign law firms, foreign companies and investors, small and big, and we are working together here in Israel.
And of course, we’re practicing law in Israel, so we’re representing entities who do business in Israeli market. But a lot of foreign actors that are coming here to Israel to invest or to build new things or to make purchases.
And of course, most of the Israeli high tech, I think maybe it’s 90% intended for export. So also looking outside all the time is why we are addressing GDPR and other standards that are relevant for the target market of our clients.
I think eventually one of our strong points. First of all, we’re doing everything you know to make the client as covered as possible, of course, very diligently. And we also find, or try to find great solutions.
As I said, I think that maybe we can say that we are enablers. We’re trying to make a business to work and do it lawfully under the requirements of the law, and we also, I think, that it’s kind of one of our features.
We are very collaborative within our law firms, meaning that, no, I’m not working alone. I can go to my partner here at the labor law department and ask him questions, or, through competition law, ask my partner for her advice, and we’re written all the time together, and I think it provides very good synergies. This is also part of our job.
Kohei: That’s brilliant and that’s your comprehensive support might be very good for the company to start in a business, not just only in your country, but also to collaborate with your countries’ businesses.
That was a very impressive opportunity. So thank you for sharing your work. As for the next question is for the translations, just to encounter you on a post on LinkedIn, that is very helpful for the privacy community, because as you mentioned, the Israeli privacy law is becoming changing for maybe almost some decades.
- What will bring the new privacy law amendment in Israel?
So could you share about the next question, how has it been discussed Israeli privacy law so far and will the new amendment be brought out? So could you share about it here?
Lior: Thanks for asking, indeed maybe the most interesting thing that is happening now is privacy laws in Israel, and generally speaking, the Israeli privacy law, protection law, is from 1981 and since then it has been amended for several times, but I think the last time was more than 10 years.
Eventually, it was very good. It was eventually. It was approved in 1981 so in Israeli privacy laws the last years, relying not only on the status itself, because it was obsolete, archaic and we had to rely on new standards.
Some of them were part of coming from the market, bottom up. Usually the market went to see the GDPR, and then the requirements, standard requirements globally and brought them to Israel to interpret the law and other, of course, other factors is the guidance of the Privacy Protection Authority, which is the supervisory authority in Israel.
Eventually, Israel is an adequate country with the European Commission resolution from 2011 right now, they just finished college in a few years. And one of the flaws that they found in this audience, that Israeli law must be changed to adapt to the new era, the new standards, new market requirements.
And you know, all the things that we were interpreting and relying on guidance and market and best practices. It’s time to put them in the written statute. So I think that we also have, by the way, another important legislation in 2018: the information security regulations went into effect the same month as the GDPR in May.
And that was also a very important piece of legislation, but it was not enough. So now amendment number 13 actually, is doing huge reforms of privacy law.
Any of the things that were, as I said, were not written now will be within the staffing itself. I think that you can say that a lot of things are really issues, very interesting.
Thank you for reading and please contact me if you want to join interview together.
Privacy Talk is the global community with diversified expert, and contact me below Linkedin if we can work together!
