The Justice bill carried by Eric Dupond-Moretti must be examined from June 6 in the Senate. While parliamentary discussions have not even started yet, article 3 of the bill is already causing controversy. According to La Quadrature du Net, it will allow law enforcement to turn our smartphones into snitches.
While the new law to delimit the commercial practices of influencers has just been voted in the National Assembly, the Justice bill carried by the Garde des Seaux Eric Dupond-Moretti must be examined in the Senate from June 6, 2023 .
This bill, which aims to establish “faster justice” in our country, is already controversial. Indeed, the vast majority of criticism concerns section 3. In short, this provision seeks to authorize the creation of a new “investigative tool” which will allow to remotely activate a person’s electronic devices without their knowledge.
The idea being to be able to access its geolocation in real time or to use the camera and the microphone of the device to capture sound and images. Be careful, however, since this measure will only be limited crimes and misdemeanors punishable by more than 5 years in prison.
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Justice bill wants to turn connected devices into snitches
In practice, the authorities could get the location of a car in real time by exploiting its electronic systems, listen and record everything that is said around a smartphone/baby monitor/connected TV/voice assistant by activating the microphone (even if the device is switched off) or film what is in the field of the photo sensor. Regarding the technique, this method would be based on the exploitation of various security vulnerabilities in order to remotely install dedicated software.
For La Quadrature du net, a famous association for the defense of fundamental freedoms in the digital environment, this measure is extremely worrying : “If this text were definitively adopted, it would dangerously increase the possibilities of police intrusion, by transforming all our IT tools into potential spies”. writes the organization.
Lawyers outraged by the measure
The association is not the only one to demand the removal of this provision. This is also the case of Council of the Order of the Paris Bar : “This measure constitutes a particularly serious breach of respect for private life which cannot be justified by the protection of public order”.
Even better and always according to the lawyers, this project represents an unprecedented violation of professional secrecy and the rights of defence. For cause, he “does not prohibit listening to conversations in his office, between a lawyer and his client, even if their transcription is prohibited”.
Source: La Quadrature du Net