Justice prohibits the use of drones to monitor the application of deconfinement - DOMINIQUE FAGET / AFP

Drones are requested to stay in the garage. The Council of State enjoined on Monday the State to cease "without delay" their use in Paris to monitor compliance with the rules of deconfinement. For the highest administrative jurisdiction, using these tools in this way "characterizes a serious and manifestly illegal violation of the right to respect for private life". The Council of State highlights the “risks of use contrary to the rules for the protection of personal data”. The Council of State had before it an appeal from the Human Rights League (LDH) and La Quadrature du Net.

During the hearing on Friday, there was a lot of talk about the possibility with these drones of identifying people filmed on the public highway. For the Ministry of the Interior and the Paris Police Prefecture, this identification is not the objective with the use of these devices: drones allow, they explained, to identify prohibited gatherings in order to deploy security forces to disperse the people gathered.

The need for a decree to regulate the use of drones

The administrative judge did not question this, but made his decision on the basis of the ability to identify people and therefore the risk of misuse. In order to be able to use these drones, either a decree will be required to regulate their use, taken after the opinion of the CNIL (National Commission for Data Protection), or to equip the devices used by the Paris Police Prefecture with technical devices making it impossible to identify the people filmed.

LDH lawyer Patrice Spinosi praised "the will of the Council of State to show its attachment to fundamental freedoms".

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  • Deconfinement
  • Justice
  • Confinement
  • Paris
  • Drone