The constitutional court in France has ruled that a bill legalizing broad surveillance of terrorism suspects does not violate the country’s constitution. The surveillance law, framed in March two months after 17 people were killed by French Islamic gunmen in the capital city, has been compared to the U.S. Patriot Act that was introduced after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The constitutional council made only minor tweaks to the legislation that human rights and privacy campaigners as well as the United Nations have described as paving the way for “very intrusive” surveillance and state-approved eavesdropping and computer-hacking. In its current form, the new law allows a wide range of new surveillance techniques meant for the Internet age, including the collection of “metadata” about online traffic and the use of software that can monitor every keystroke on a computer. The court said intelligence services can use these tools without approval of a judge, though the government must still seek permission from an independent body created to oversee surveillance activities.
The Constitutional Council, however, did strike down a provision of the law that would allow emergency surveillance without the approval of the prime minister or another minister in the government. This measure is “evidently a disproportionate violation of the right to respect for private life and the confidentiality of communication,” the council said in a statement.
The 18-strong United Nations Committee for Human Rights in a report published on Friday warned that the surveillance powers granted to French intelligence agencies were “excessively broad”. It stated that the bill “grants overly broad powers for very intrusive surveillance on the basis of vast and badly defined objectives” and called on France to “guarantee that any interference in private life must conform to principles of legality, proportionality and necessity”.
French advocacy rights group, La Quadrature du Net, also said it is ready to challenge the act at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. “Mass surveillance is part of an intolerable and oppressive machine, which is by nature the seed of totalitarianism”, said Jeremie Zimmermann, co-founder of the group.
On the other hand, France’s Digital Council, an independent commission that advises the government on the effects of digital technologies on society, welcomed the clearer controls on surveillance but said the bill did not adequately protect civil liberties.