https://petapixel.com/2023/07/06/france-to-allow-police-to-spy-on-people-through-phone-cameras/

 

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France to Allow Police to Spy on People Through Phone Cameras

Jul 06, 2023
Jeremy Gray
     

France surveillance bill passes, allowing remote surveillance using
smartphones

As part of a broader justice reform bill, French lawmakers have given
French police the legal authority to spy on suspects by remotely
activating cameras, microphones, and GPS location functionality on a
person's smartphone and other connected devices.

The new law covers laptops, vehicles, smartphones, and other
connected devices and will only be used when an individual is
suspected of a crime that is punishable by at least ten years of
prison time.

As NDTV reports, despite cries of authoritarianism and unjustifiable
government oversight from people on both sides of the political
spectrum, French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti claims that the
new regulations will affect only "dozens of cases a year."

Devices could remotely be used to record sound and images of people
suspected of serious crimes, including terrorism and organized crime.

A French anti-censorship and surveillance group, La Quadrature du Net
(LQDN), argued earlier this year that the newly-passed legislation
raises significant concerns about the infringement of "fundamental
liberties." LQDN says that people have a right to privacy that is
violated by the "heavy-handed" proposal.

Lawmakers in French President Emmanuel Macron's corner argued for an
amendment that limits the new remote spying privileges to situations
"when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime" and only
"for a strictly proportional duration."

For authorities to utilize remote spying surveillance measures, a
judge must approve the usage. The period of surveillance can be up to
six months. Further, the law excludes certain people from
surveillance, including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges, and
French legislators.

France surveillance bill passes, allowing remote surveillance using
smartphones

"We're far away from the totalitarianism of 1984," says
Dupond-Moretti, adding that "People's lives will be saved" by the new
law.

Following a coordinated series of devastating and deadly terrorist
attacks in Paris in November 2015, the country has routinely enacted
stricter surveillance laws.

Critics have argued that France has continually eroded human rights
through its various surveillance measures, harkening back to rebukes
of the Patriot Act that American lawmakers instituted following the
September 11 terrorist attacks.

Despite unrest within civil liberties groups, the French National
Assembly passed its new justice reform bill, including surveillance
measures, in a landslide vote of 80 to 24.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.

Law, News
france, law, News, police, spying, surveillance
     
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