Deconfinement: the Council of State prohibits surveillance by drones in Paris

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The Council of State, the highest French jurisdiction, banned this Monday, May 18, the use of drones, used in Paris outside any legal framework to monitor compliance with the rules of deconfinement. 

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The devices of the Paris police headquarters will no longer be able to fly over the capital to check compliance with the deconfinement rules. The Council of State on Monday ordered the state to stop, "  without delay  ", from carrying out these surveillance measures.

The highest French court was seized in emergency proceedings by the League for Human Rights (LDH) and the association La Quadrature du Net, whose appeal had first been dismissed by the Paris administrative court. "  When I discovered that the use of drones was not supervised, my arms fell to me  ," said Claire Rameix, lawyer for Quadrature du Net, to the audience on Friday.

The debates focused on the question of respect for the right to privacy and the right to the protection of personal data, two fundamental freedoms threatened by the possibility of identifying the people filmed by these drones on the public highway. The Interior Ministry and the police prefecture have reiterated that these drones were not used for this purpose, but to locate gatherings of more than ten people in order to deploy police to disperse them. The representative of the police prefecture, however, admitted that it was "  possible to recognize people  " and "  the color of the clothes  " when the aircraft flew at 80 or 100 meters in height, which is generally the case.

“Serious and illegal violation of the right to respect for private life”

In his order, the judge thus retained the “  risks of use contrary to the rules for the protection of personal data  ”. The use of these drones, without a legal framework, "  characterizes a serious and manifestly illegal violation of the right to respect for private life  ", he continues. The reuse of these drones can only be permitted within the framework of an order to regulate their use taken on the advice of the CNIL, or if they are equipped with tools making it impossible to identify the people filmed.

"  Taking note  " of the order of the Council of State, the prefecture of police said in a press release that it was examining, with the Ministry of the Interior, "  as the judge invited, the technical conditions and which will allow us to better meet the obligations  ”concerning the identification of persons.
"  In the meantime, drone surveillance of compliance with deconfinement measures has been suspended,  " she adds.

LDH lawyer Patrick Spinosi hailed "  a victory  ". “  We are here on the digital side of individual freedoms, which is the most contemporary and certainly one of the most important, because there is a risk of a very significant shift.  Patrick Spinosi sees in the decision of the Council of State a "  warning shot  " against other government initiatives, such as the StopCovid application , which should make it possible to identify the chains of contamination.

If this decision of the Council of State concerns the city of Paris, it should be able to be transposed everywhere in France.

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