The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Sunday endorsed a deal by which the ex-driver of Yair Netanyahu agreed to pay him NIS 30,000 and publicly apologize to settle a lawsuit by the prime minister’s son against the driver for recording an embarrassing conversation.
In 2017, Channel 12 bought the recording from driver Roi Rozen, who recorded Netanyahu and his friends making obnoxious and offensive statements as he drove them between locations.Netanyahu sued Rozen, but the sides reached a deal, which made continuing the lawsuit unnecessary and led to the court giving their deal the legal power of a formal final judgment.Under Israeli law, it is legal for one person to record a conversation between that person and one other person even if the second person does not know.However, it is generally illegal for a third party who is not part of a telephone call to record a conversation between two other persons if neither of them know.In criminal cases, the police can overcome this legal bar by getting a warrant to wiretap as part of a criminal investigation.In the case of Netanyahu, it was initially unclear how the call being taken in a public forum seemingly on speaker-phone would impact the legal prohibition of a third party recording two others without their knowledge.Part of the twist in this case was that, as opposed to the conventional case of a third party recording two people without their knowledge, which usually means they do not know they are being eavesdropped on, Netanyahu and others speaking did at least know that there was a third party listening in on their conversation.However, ultimately it appears that Rozen decided that he might be categorized as an illegal third party recording the conversation, since as the driver, he was not part of the conversation, even though he happened to be in the car.