Recording job interviews in Israel: the Wiretap Law, the Privacy Protection Law and PPA guidelines

Israel lets a participant record their own conversation: the Wiretap Law, 5739-1979, defines "secret listening" as listening "without the consent of any of the parties to the conversation," so a recruiter who records an interview they take part in is not committing that offence. The Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981, then governs the recording and transcript as personal data in a database, with a duty to tell the candidate the purpose and their rights, and the Privacy Protection Authority (PPA) has issued guidelines on recruitment and on workplace monitoring. As of October 2026, the practical rule is to tell candidates, ask, and use the recording only for the job they applied for.

This page adds Israel to our country series, which also covers the UAE, Germany and Singapore. It is for recruiters, agency consultants and hiring managers who interview candidates in Israel by video or phone, including from the US. Quotations from the Hebrew text of the Wiretap Law are our translations.

Israel's rules at a glance

Is it legal to record a job interview in Israel?

Yes, if you are a party to it. Section 1 of the Wiretap Law (the government's law database links to the consolidated Hebrew text on Nevo) defines a "party to a conversation" as the speaker, the person the conversation is intended for, and the sender and intended recipient of a telecommunications message, "excluding a provider of a service of transmitting a message by telecommunications for or on behalf of another." "Listening" means "listening to another's conversation, picking it up or copying it, all by means of a device," and "secret listening" means "listening without the consent of any of the parties to the conversation." Section 2(a) punishes secret listening without a lawful permit with five years' imprisonment, and section 2(b) punishes knowingly using or disclosing what was obtained that way.

Because the interviewer is a party and consents to their own recording, recording an interview is not secret listening. Israel's State Comptroller restated the same definition in its 2026 report on wiretapping and communications data: secret listening is listening "without the consent of any of the parties to the conversation." Section 3 sets the limit: listening to a conversation and recording it "even with the consent of one of the parties" is prohibited, and treated as secret listening, if it is done "for the purpose of committing an offence or a harmful act." Recording for an accurate interview record is not that, but secretly recording a candidate to use the audio against them later would invite the question.

What about an AI note-taker that joins the call?

The definition of a party excludes a service provider that transmits messages for others, and an AI note-taker run by a separate company is not a party in its own right. On the statute's wording, a recording made with the interviewer's consent as a party is not secret listening, but we found no Israeli decision on note-taking bots; telling everyone on the call that a bot is recording removes the question.

What does the Protection of Privacy Law require?

Section 1 of the Protection of Privacy Law says "no person shall infringe the privacy of another without his consent," and the Law defines consent as "informed consent, explicit or implied." Section 2 lists the infringements, including "listening-in prohibited under any Law" and "using, or passing on to another, information on a person's private affairs for a purpose other than for which it was given." For recruiters, Chapter B on databases does most of the work, because recordings, transcripts and notes held in an applicant tracking system or a shared drive are a "database" of personal data processed by digital means:

• Purpose (section 8(b)): no one may process personal data in a database "except for the lawfully established purpose of the database."
• Notice (section 11): a request for personal data for a database must say whether providing it is a legal obligation or voluntary and the consequence of refusing, the purpose, the controller's name and contact details, to whom the data will be delivered and why, and the rights of access and correction.
• Access and correction (sections 13 and 14): every person may access personal data about them in a database, in Hebrew, Arabic or English, and ask for it to be corrected.
• Security (section 17): "the database controller and the processor are each responsible for the security of the data in the database," with detailed duties in the Data Security Regulations, 2017.

Watch the definition of "data of special sensitivity." Updated after Amendment 13, it includes health data, biometric identifiers used to identify a person, and "a personality assessment conducted by a professional" or "by means intended to perform an assessment of material personality traits, including character traits, intellectual competence, and ability to function at work." An AI tool that rates a candidate's personality or abilities from an interview may produce exactly that kind of data, which raises the stakes for security, access and retention.

What does the PPA say about recruitment and workplace monitoring?

The PPA's guideline 2/2012 on privacy in recruitment and in recruitment agencies followed an audit of agencies running employee compatibility tests. The PPA's English summary says the controller "needs to receive the informed consent of the data subject, prior to the data collection," that data may not be used for purposes other than the one it was collected for, and that the employer must limit access to test results and accumulated data to staff whose role requires it. It treats testing agencies as processors and the potential employers as controllers. On talent pools, it is direct: a candidate's consent to additional uses given "on or before the day on which he was tested" is "presumed to be given without free choice and therefore invalid," and is likely to be valid only if given after the candidate is told whether they were accepted or rejected.

The PPA's guideline 5/2017 on workplace surveillance adds the employment angle: "Employees are not of equal status to their employers, and therefore even if they agree to the implementation of such practices in their workspace, it is hard to determine that under the circumstances the obligation of the employer to receive free and informed consent has been met." Employers must act in a "reasonable, fair and proportional manner, and in good faith," use surveillance only for legitimate purposes, and set out a clear policy before introducing it. A tool that records interviews also records the interviewers, so share the policy with them too. The PPA notes that there are currently no English translations of its guidelines; the English pages are summaries.

Can you send recordings to a US vendor or hiring manager?

The Privacy Protection (Transfer of Data to Databases Abroad) Regulations, 2001 allow a transfer from a database in Israel where the destination's law ensures a level of protection "no lesser" than Israeli law, or where one of the listed conditions is met, including that "the data subject has consented to the transfer" or that the recipient is bound by an agreement with the database owner to comply with the conditions that apply to a database in Israel. Regulation 3 requires a written undertaking from the recipient that it is "taking adequate measures to ensure the privacy of the data subjects" and that the data "shall be transferred to no other person." The PPA's outsourcing guideline 2/2011 says organizations must check that cross-border outsourcing complies with these regulations, define the purpose and security terms, and set the vendor's retention period and deletion when the contract ends. Your own state's recording law also applies to your side of the call; see two-party consent states.

Can you use AI note takers or transcription?

Yes, with notice and a vendor contract that meets the transfer and outsourcing rules above. Ask where audio is processed, whether it is kept, and whether the vendor trains models on it. Interview Signal, for example, runs on the interviewer's own computer with no bot in the call, shows a read-aloud consent line with a one-click pause, and sends audio to a speech-to-text provider in short chunks without retaining it; the transcript is still personal data under the Privacy Protection Law. The wider questions are in is it legal to use AI note takers in interviews.

A consent line for interviews in Israel

לפני שנתחיל: אני רוצה להקליט את הראיון [ולתמלל אותו בתוכנה] כדי
לתעד את התשובות שלך במדויק. ההקלטה תשמש רק לתהליך הגיוס הזה, תועבר
רק ל[שם הלקוח או התפקיד], ותימחק [תקופה] לאחר סיום התהליך. זה בסדר
מבחינתך? אפשר לסרב או לבקש לעצור בכל שלב, וזה לא ישפיע על המועמדות שלך.

(Before we start: I'd like to record the interview [and transcribe it
with software] so I capture your answers accurately. The recording is
used only for this recruitment process, shared only with [client name
or role], and deleted [period] after the process ends. Is that all right
with you? You can say no or ask to stop at any point, and it won't
affect your candidacy.)

Add the section 11 details in writing: whether giving the data is voluntary, the controller's name and contact, and the rights of access and correction. More wording is in the interview recording consent script, and our candidate data access requests guide covers answering section 13 requests.

Checklist before you record interviews in Israel

• Recording made only by a participant, or with every party's consent when a separate service records.
• Section 11 notice given: purpose, voluntary or not, recipients, controller, access and correction rights.
• Recording used only for this hiring process; talent-pool consent asked only after the outcome is communicated.
• Access limited to people whose role requires it.
• AI scores or personality ratings treated as data of special sensitivity.
• Foreign vendors under the 2001 transfer regulations, with a written undertaking and deletion terms.
• Retention period set and recordings deleted on schedule.