French lawmakers plan to vote on a sweeping justice reform bill that includes a provision for allowing law enforcement agents to remotely tap into the cameras, microphones and location services of phones and other internet-connected devices used by some criminal suspects.
Left-wing parties generally oppose the surveillance provision, but Macron's centrist party can potentially rally the conservative Republican party in the lower house of the French Parliament to pass the bill on Tuesday.
The Senate, which the opposition right controls, approved the legislation in May.
The proposed law plainly stipulates that the procedure can be executed “without the knowledge or consent of its owner or possessor” but is limited to suspects involved in terrorism, organised crime and other illegal activities punishable by five or more years in prison.
The language authorising eavesdropping is contained in a broader reform bill aimed at “modernising” penal procedures, reflecting what polls indicate is a public demand for more law and order.
“The goal of this law is clear: a faster, clearer, modern justice,” French Justice Minister EricDupond-Moretti said when he presented the legislation in the spring.
The justice minister proposed the high-tech hunt for suspects as an alternative to long-standing police surveillance practices, such as wiretapping a suspect’s vehicle and house, which he deemed no longer viable and increasingly dangerous for investigators.
“The technique today is faulty,” Dupond-Moretti told lawmakers in the lower house, the National Assembly, this month. “Why would we deprive ourselves of new technologies?”
When some parliamentarians expressed concerns over privacy rights, the minister replied, “By crying wolf, you are no longer credible.”
Abuse of power
Besides limiting the use of high-tech spying on suspects to crimes punishable by at least five years in prison, the legislation contains other controls.
The goal of tapping a connected device must be locating someone in real-time, and the investigating judge in a case must give the green light.
In addition to activating location services, the measure would also allow investigators to activate a suspect's phone camera and microphone.
Critics claim the provision would inevitably lead to abuses of power by Frenchpolice, who in the past have faced allegations of misusing their authority, brutality and racism.
“We already see that there’s a lot of abuse in France today,” said Bastien Le Querrec, a lawyer with French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net.
“In reality, who decides on the seriousness of an event in an investigation? It’s the police, the prosecutors, the investigating judge. Nothing in this bill will prevent abuse.”
