Brussels, 15/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 14 April, the Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament submitted a written question to the European Commission - more specifically to Vice-President Frans Timmermans, the Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova, and the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos - on the French bill on intelligence, currently being discussed at the National Assembly and which has galvanised the concerns of the digital liberty defence associations and data hosts alike.
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) at the European Parliament has expressed its “great concern about the scope and the content of the French bill on intelligence”, the group writes in a press release. “This draft national law, which aims at improving the French intelligence services, could have a spill-over effect that creates mass surveillance systems in Europe in contravention of European Union law and its founding values”, ALDE explains. “We fully support the objectives of the bill, as there is a very real need to manage intelligence activities better and to provide them with the tools they need in light of current threats”, the MEPs Nathalie Griesbeck, Sophie in 't Veld, Louis Michel, Cecilia Wikström and Filiz Hyusmenova write (our translation from the original French), but “a number of measures of this bill seem to go against the principles and values of the Union as defined by the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, but also the case-law of the Courts of Strasbourg in Luxembourg on respecting privacy and the protection of personal data”.
Intrusive methods, threat to public liberties
The MEPs believe that “there are legitimate concerns regarding the extended scope of application of this bill, the fact that the intelligence services will have direct access to the data of Internet providers and hosts for automated processing, the retention period for connection data and the absence of any formal court authorisation prior to any interception of personal communications content”. If provisions of this kind were adopted, “we believe they could contravene several fundamental principles of European law”, the MEPs argue.
They refer to the case-law of the European Court of Justice, particularly the ruling of April 2014 on data retention. When it annulled the directive of the same name, the Court stated that in line with article 52 of the Charter, any limitation on the exercise of rights and freedoms must be provided for by the law, respect their essential content and, in full respect of the principle of proportionality, no limitations can be placed upon these rights and freedoms unless they are necessary and fulfil objectives of general interest or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others. “The text proposed by the French government significantly extends the scope of the intelligence services as well as the authorised techniques made available to them, without really reinforcing the legal and democratic controls on these practices”, write the MEPs, who await a written response from the European Executive. “Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, this law would normalise intrusive methods of gathering intelligence, provide intelligence services with direct access to the data of Internet providers, and provide absolute power to the Prime Minister and the French security services without any judiciary control”, Nathalie Griesbeck concludes, describing the French bill as a real “threat” to public freedoms. (Solenn Paulic)