Your personal mobile at any time can become an informant, passing all your secrets to the police. It is true that in France, a corresponding law was passed.
How is this innovation justified?
The French Senate has approved a law that expands the rights of the police. In particular, the scope of searches at night is widened, and permission is given to remotely activate mobile phones without the owner’s consent.
The vague term “enable” means that the police will be able to obtain data from the device’s microphone or camera if they deem it necessary. In effect, this means that at any moment your phone’s camera and microphone can turn on without your knowledge and start providing information about what you’re saying out loud, what’s being said around you, what you’re doing, where you are, what people are around near you and so on.
To point out, French laws had already allowed all this to be done in the past, but only to intelligence officers and for intelligence purposes. Now the police will have the same rights.
The specific article of the law, which confirms the right to actually turn a personal phone into a tool for spying on its owner, appeared almost at the last moment.
How will it be implemented from a technical point of view?
The specific article provides two ways to “remote phone activation”:
1. The first, is intended to simply determine a person’s geographic location. Permission for this action is granted by the prosecutor or the investigator, in the case of a crime punishable by imprisonment of at least five years.
2. The second way, is exactly the same “remote activation” of the phone’s cameras and microphone, when it comes to the investigation of terrorist acts or actions of members of organized crime. At the same time, the draft law prohibits the listening and recording of MPs (no doubt), lawyers and officials.
French senators adopted the law, but with modifications. For example, the definition of the geographical location was allowed only in the case of the most serious crimes, where the punishment starts from 10 years in prison, and “remote activation” was prohibited in doctors’ offices, notary offices, in journalists’ apartments, etc.
Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti, who actively promoted the new law, noted that it does not seem to bring anything new, wiretapping and recordings from outdoor cameras have long been actively used in investigations, and in general, opponents of the law behave such as “as if the moon had been discovered.”
The implementation of the law raises many questions
Every day almost any citizen crosses paths with dozens, and often hundreds of people. And there is no guarantee that among these tens and hundreds of people, there will not be someone who will attract the attention of the police for the above reasons, which means that his circle of acquaintances will be studied very carefully.
Why waste time collecting data when you can just get into anyone’s smartphone and find out what they’re talking about, what they’re doing, where they’re going, who they’re hanging out with.
And our phones also store our data, including bank card data, mail, photos and sometimes photos that can easily become a source of blackmail.
Anyone who has access to someone else’s smartphone has the opportunity to use any information they provide, and it is not certain that this will be done only for legally compliant purposes.
Therefore, many are already convinced that the French judiciary has opened Pandora’s box. Yes, mobile phones have long been an integral part of our lives. However, if your phone turns into a surveillance tool that can be used against you at any time, the very concept of privacy simply disappears. Nothing is a secret anymore. And there is no way to protect yourself from peeps, except to throw away the phone, which is almost impossible in our life.
