Justice Ministry watchdog orders police to probe publications about Mali and Liel Yahalomi

The Justice Ministry’s Privacy Protection Authority says it ordered police to conduct an internal investigation into the publication of footage and personal information about Mali and Liel Yahalomi, the mother and daughter who disappeared in Austria in August, were later revealed to have fled to Argentina of their own accord, and returned to Israel last week.

Many of the publications came after the women were already located safe and sound in Buenos Aires on August 14, and “had no legitimate basis and appeared contrary to police’s own guidelines,” Authority head Gilad Samama says.

The source of the information about Mali and Liel Yahalomi was “in at least some of the cases” the police force itself, apparently in violation of the organization’s own guidelines, the Authority says.

“Among other things, videos were published documenting them in a vulnerable situation when they were found on a bus and questioned by a police representative,” the Authority says, referring to footage that police posted to official social media pages.

“Personal and sensitive details were also revealed from the investigation… including private correspondence, searches conducted with artificial intelligence tools, information about their financial situation, financial actions, their location and movements and their expected time of arrival in Israel,” the authority adds, referring to information published in Hebrew media reports that cited law enforcement officials.

Samama calls on Police Commissioner Danny Levy and internal privacy regulator Commander George Kevorkian to probe “the criteria weighed by the Israel Police, to the extent they were weighed,” in making the footage and information public, and to send him the results.