Privacy law violated after data of 21,000 special education students leaked, Justice Ministry says
The ministry database contains sensitive information about more than 100,000 people and, under the regulations, is therefore subject to high security requirements, the authority said.
The Justice Ministry's Privacy Protection Authority has found that Israel's Education Ministry violated privacy laws and data-security regulations after personal and medical information of roughly 21,000 special education students was leaked. The unauthorized disclosure involved sensitive details about students registered in the ministry's ultra-Orthodox (haredi) education district, including identifying information, home and school data, religious affiliation, and medical records specifying each student's disability.
The authority classified the incident as a serious security breach, although it did not specify a fine or outline additional enforcement measures. The investigation traced the leak to May 2024, when Education Ministry employees attempted to create a digital form to facilitate the placement of special education students in the haredi sector.
They inadvertently extracted sensitive data from a ministry system and linked it to the form, which was subsequently shared with unauthorized individuals. The ministry argued the leak resulted from a single permission error, but the regulator found broader failures in the ministry's management of the system, including unauthorized access to the database, lack of a compliant information-security policy, and insufficient security risk assessments.
Written by urgent.news from Jerusalem Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
