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Content type: Long Read
15th September 2017
European Court of Human Rights Intervention
On 15 September 2017, Privacy International filed an intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in Association Confraternelle de la Presse Judiciare and 11 Other Applications v. France. This case challenges various surveillance powers authorised under the French Intelligence Act of 24 July 2015 as incompatible with Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which respectively protect the right to privacy and the right to…
Content type: News & Analysis
18th January 2016
In 2015 the United Nations' human rights mechanisms significantly increased their capacity to monitor and assess states' compliance with their obligations around the right to privacy. Notably, the Human Rights Council established the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, filling a significant gap in the international human rights protection system. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Committee put surveillance laws and practices in a range of countries under close scrutiny, making…
Content type: News & Analysis
30th September 2015
Today Privacy International together with other international human rights organisations call on the French parliament [PDF] to reject a bill on international surveillance, which, as it is currently worded, fails to protect and respect the right to privacy of individuals worldwide.
In June this year, the French parliament passed a law regulating the work of the intelligence services that will greatly undermine the privacy of French residents. Soon after, the French Constitutional Council…
Content type: News & Analysis
25th March 2015
The French Government unveiled a new Bill that aims at providing a legal framework to intelligence services last Friday. While Privacy International welcomes the positive step of placing powers that were until now poorly regulated under the law, we remain alarmed by many aspects of this Bill. Two months after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris that targeted the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket, the Government seeks to provide the intelligence services with a worryingly…
Content type: News & Analysis
18th January 2013
The social news website MiroirSocial.com confirmed yesterday that the prominent French technology firm Bull SA has sold its controversial mass surveillance "Eagle" system to Stéphane Salies, one of its chief designers and an ex-director of Bull. The surveillance software was previously manufactured and supplied by Bull’s subsidiary, Amesys, a company that is currently the subject of a judicial enquiry in Paris following a legal complaint filed by two human rights organisations, the…
Content type: News & Analysis
3rd February 1996
The French Socialist Party suffered a resounding defeat in parlimentary elections on March 21st and 28th, in part due to a wiretapping scandal that broke a week before the elections. Results showed that they lost over 200 seats in the Parliment and became the minority party. Socialist President Francois Mitterrand will remain in office but is expected to face a tough election in 1994.
The scandal emerged after reports and transcripts were leaked to Paris Daily Liberation, showing that a…