In the name of public freedoms
Detailed mobile phone bills (or “fadettes”), widely used by the judicial police, will they disappear from the procedures? To comply with European law, the Court of Cassation issued, on July 13, four judgments governing the use of connection data by investigators. The records of calls and SMS, as well as geolocation data, IP addresses and lists of websites consulted, transmitted to the police by telephone operators, are now subject to very strict control. Even if the telephone is a central factor in the elucidation of legal cases, the public prosecutor will no longer be able, without validation by an independent authority, to order such investigative measures, considered as prejudicial to public freedoms.
At the heart of the procedures
Brought to the fore by the Bettencourt affair, popularized at his expense by Nicolas Sarkozy in the so-called “Paul Bismuth” affair, the name used by the former president for his borrowed mobile phone, the fadettes are a essential part of the legal process. While they do not provide access to the content of conversations (unlike wiretaps), they do make it possible to know who is calling who and when, but also to read SMS exchanges or to know when a suspect has bought a plane ticket in line and with which means of payment. The most seasoned police officers remember that in the past they already recorded calls made on landline telephone lines (as in the Grégory case) and faxes. The requisitions that investigators address to telephone operators and Internet service providers are chargeable, which results in considerable legal costs.
The parquet under control
The criminal division of the Court of Cassation nevertheless provides exceptions for cases of terrorism, serious organized crime and for “the most serious offences”. It remains to define the latter, which European law does not do. The parquetiers, very reassembled, therefore expect that the direction of criminal affairs and pardons translate in a circular the concrete applications of these judgments. “We have started writing to the judicial police officers to tell them to ease off on the connection data”, deplores the prosecutor of Ajaccio, Nicolas Septe.
Unarmed Investigators
“It’s going to be a huge problem. The vast majority of files include telephone requisitions”, already warns Frédéric Lagache, of the Alliance police union. It is above all the fight against “everyday crime” (burglary, child abduction, drug trafficking, harassment, domestic violence, etc.) which risks being hindered by these measures: “In my jurisdiction, we have a lot of car thefts. Not an investigation holds without telephony and boundary marking ! And then, in domestic violence cases, where there is often a lack of evidence, telephony is crucial and text messages are often decisive,” pleads Jean-Baptiste Bladier, prosecutor of Senlis and president of the National Conference of the prosecutors of the Republic, who expects to see a flood of requests for nullity. “The French judicial system is not at all able to apply what the Court of Cassation is asking for, warns Nicolas Septe. There will be hundreds of requisitions to make to the judge of freedom and detention! » Even thousands each year, in the largest jurisdictions. But the arms are always missing, in the law courts.