Privacy, as a matter of practice.

We are a practice that trades, before anything else, on the trust our clients place in us. A privacy policy that exists merely to satisfy a regulator is, in our view, a failed document. This one is written on the assumption that you will read it — that you should read it — and that its contents should match precisely how we behave in practice.

What follows applies to every person who contacts us, whether through the enquiry form on this website, by email, by telephone, or through a professional introducer. It applies whether you subsequently engage us or do not. It applies to the information you provide about yourself, about your family members, and about your professional advisors.

Who we are

Israeli Citizenship is the trading name of the private practice whose engagement letters you will receive should you proceed beyond an initial consultation. The controller of personal information for the purposes of this policy is the senior partner assigned to your matter; in the first instance that person is the one who replies to your enquiry.

We are registered in Israel and maintain corresponding presences in the United Kingdom and the European Union. Our practice is subject to the professional obligations of the Israel Bar Association, the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales, and equivalent bodies in other jurisdictions where we engage.

What we collect, and why

When you submit an enquiry or engage us, you share information with us in three categories. We treat each differently.

Category one — contact information

Your name, email address, telephone number, country of residence. This is held to enable us to reply to you and, if we engage, to conduct the engagement. Without it we cannot correspond with you, and you are under no obligation to provide it.

Category two — matter information

Information relevant to the substance of what you have asked us to consider. This may include details of your family's Jewish lineage, existing citizenships, tax residency, intended timeline, professional circumstances, financial parameters where relevant, and the names and details of family members who may be included in an application.

We collect this category only to the extent it is necessary for the matter you have instructed us on. We do not collect, and will decline to retain, information beyond that scope.

Category three — evidentiary documents

Should you engage us, we will in due course handle civil records, rabbinic letters, passports, tax documents, and similar originals or certified copies. These are handled under explicit engagement letter terms and are subject to the professional obligations of legal privilege in the relevant jurisdictions.

A standing commitment

We do not collect or retain any personal information beyond that which is necessary for the matter, nor do we retain it for longer than the matter requires.

How we use it

We use your information strictly for the following purposes:

• To respond to your enquiry and, if appropriate, to schedule a consultation
• To conduct the engagement for which you have instructed us, including filings with Israeli authorities, consular submissions, and correspondence with your other advisors at your direction
• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations that attend our practice, including anti-money-laundering, know-your-client, and professional reporting requirements
• To maintain the internal records required by our professional regulators for a defined period after the close of the engagement

We do not use your information for marketing. We do not add you to mailing lists. We do not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes. We do not sell data.

Who sees your information

Within the firm, access is held by the senior partner conducting the engagement and, where necessary, by a single administrative staff member operating under explicit confidentiality obligations. We do not use offshore paralegals, overseas document review services, or third-party review pools.

Outside the firm, information is shared only with:

• The Israeli Ministry of Interior, the Jewish Agency (where relevant), consular officers, and other statutory bodies to whom an application must be made — and only the portions of the file those bodies are required to receive
• Your own other professional advisors — your solicitor, accountant, family office — at your explicit written direction
• Rabbinic authorities in the course of obtaining confirmation letters, where this is required by the matter and is conducted with your knowledge and consent
• Specialist counsel or archival researchers engaged on your behalf, where their instruction is necessary for the matter and conducted under sub-engagement letters that mirror our own confidentiality terms

Beyond these, and beyond our own regulators where they exercise their statutory powers of inspection, no third party will receive your information.

How long we retain it

Our default position is that we retain as little as we can, for as short a period as the profession permits.

• Enquiries that do not proceed to engagement: retained for thirty days from last contact, then destroyed
• Engagements that proceed: retained for the duration of the engagement plus the minimum period required by professional regulations after closure (typically six years under English solicitor rules, seven years under Israel Bar requirements)
• Evidentiary originals: returned to you on completion of the engagement, or securely destroyed at your direction
• Tax and anti-money-laundering records: retained for the statutory periods required by relevant legislation

On the expiry of the relevant retention period we destroy paper records by professional shredding and digital records by secure deletion, and we obtain documentary confirmation of both.

Where it is held

Digital records are held on servers located within Israel and the European Union, in facilities certified to ISO/IEC 27001. Encryption at rest and in transit is standard. Paper records are held in locked storage at the office of the senior partner managing the matter.

We do not host client information in consumer cloud services (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, etc.) and we do not permit staff to transmit client information via unsecured channels including consumer email, SMS, or messaging applications unless an explicit encrypted equivalent has been agreed with you.

Your rights

Under applicable data protection law — the Israeli Protection of Privacy Law, the UK Data Protection Act 2018, and the European General Data Protection Regulation — you have the following rights, which we honour as a matter of practice regardless of the strict jurisdictional applicability:

• To be informed of what we hold about you
• To receive a copy of that information (a subject access request)
• To request correction of anything inaccurate
• To request deletion, subject to our professional obligations to retain certain records
• To restrict how we use your information
• To object to processing on grounds relevant to your particular situation
• To lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority

Requests under any of these rights should be addressed to the senior partner managing your matter, or — in the absence of an open engagement — to [email protected]. We respond within fourteen days.

Cookies and the website itself

This website uses cookies only to the extent required to make the site function and to allow us to understand, in aggregate, which pages are being read. We do not use advertising cookies, we do not track visitors across other websites, and we do not sell analytics data to third parties.

The analytics we use anonymise IP addresses and do not create a profile of individual visitors. You can disable cookies in your browser without affecting your ability to use the site.

Changes to this document

We revise this document when our practices change, or when the law requires it. The effective date at the top of this page reflects the most recent material revision. Prior versions are retained in our records for five years.

If you are an active client at the time of a material revision, we will notify you of the change directly. For enquirers who have not engaged us, the version in effect at the time of your enquiry is the version that governs your contact with us.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or requests to exercise any of the rights described above, should be sent to:

By email

[email protected]

By post

The Data Protection Officer · Israeli Citizenship · Sarona Building, Tel Aviv

Supervisory authorities

Israel: Privacy Protection Authority. United Kingdom: Information Commissioner's Office. European Union: your national supervisory authority in the member state of your habitual residence.