France Grants Police Phone Spy Powers
The French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone, and GPS on their phones and other devices, according to a late Wednesday vote by French lawmakers.
As part of a larger justice reform bill, the spying provision has been criticized by the left and rights advocates as a charter for authoritarian snoops. However, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would only affect “dozens of cases per year.”
The measure, which includes laptops, cars, and other connected objects in addition to phones, would enable the geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years in prison.
People suspected of terror offenses, as well as delinquency and organized crime, could have devices remotely activated to record their voices and images.
The provisions “raise grave concerns about violations of fundamental liberties,” the digital rights organization La Quadrature du Net said in a May statement.
It cited the “right to security, the right to a private life and to private correspondence,” as well as the “right to come and go freely,” referring to the proposal as a “slide into heavy-handed security.”
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During Wednesday’s debate, members of President Emmanuel Macron’s camp introduced an amendment limiting the use of remote surveillance to “when the nature and severity of the crime justifies it” and “for a strictly proportional duration.”
Any use of the provision requires judicial approval, and the total duration of surveillance cannot exceed six months.
And sensitive occupations such as physicians, journalists, attorneys, judges, and legislators would not be legitimate targets.
Dupond-Moretti stated, “We are far from the totalitarianism of ‘1984’,” George Orwell’s novel about a society under total surveillance.
“The law will save people’s lives,” he added.
Members of the National Assembly voted in favor of the contested provision, which was part of an article containing several other provisions, as part of a larger justice reform bill moving through the legislature.
France Grants Police Phone Spy Powers
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