PARIS – The French government on Wednesday passed a bill that will enable its police to spy on suspects remotely by activating the camera, microphone, and GPS of their phones and other devices.

Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers’ charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would only affect “dozens of cases a year”.

Covering laptops, cars, other connected objects, and phones, the measure would allow the geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years of imprisonment.

Devices could also be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offenses, delinquency, and organised crime.

The provisions “raise serious concerns over infringements of fundamental liberties,” reads the digital rights group La Quadrature.

It cited the “right to security, right to a private life and to private correspondence” and “the right to come and go freely”, calling the proposal part of a “slide into heavy-handed security”.

During a debate on Wednesday, MPs in President Emmanuel Macron’s camp inserted an amendment limiting the use of remote spying to “when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime” and “for a strictly proportional duration”.

Any use of the provision must be approved by a judge, while the total duration of the surveillance cannot exceed six months and sensitive professions including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges, and MPs would not be legitimate targets.

“We are far away from the totalitarianism of ‘1984’. People’s lives will be saved by the law,” said Dupond-Moretti

The contested measure, part of an article containing several other provisions, was voted through by National Assembly members as a wider justice overhaul bill making its way through parliament. 

-Nampa/AFP