The Council of State is examining Tuesday an appeal calling for the suspension of the controversial decree authorizing the use of drones equipped with cameras by the police, including for the maintenance of order.
The Association for the Defence of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico) has appealed to the highest administrative court asking it to suspend a decree of 19 April allowing the processing of data from images from cameras installed on aircraft.
Prevention of safety expectations
This text authorizes police, gendarmes, customs and military in certain cases to use drones for "the prevention of attacks on the safety of people and property in particularly exposed places" or for "the security of gatherings" on public roads. The security forces can also use these small remotely operated aircraft for "the prevention of acts of terrorism", "the regulation of transport flows", "the surveillance of borders, with a view to combating their irregular crossing" and "the rescue of persons".
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The decree was published more than a year after the vote on the law on criminal responsibility and internal security, which had reintroduced several controversial measures of the Global Security Law, rejected by the Constitutional Council in 2021. It is notably under this decree that prefectures have issued orders for the surveillance of May 1 parades by drones, in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and Le Havre in particular, challenged before the administrative courts by Adelico and other organizations.
Infringements of individual freedoms
For the applicant association, this decree "carries by its very existence considerable infringements of the right to respect for private life, the right to the protection of personal data, the freedom to come and go and the freedom of demonstration," according to the request consulted by AFP.
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It is therefore fundamental that the use of drones is framed by the texts in the most meticulous way possible, "considers the applicant association, which considers that the decree it attacks is "incompatible" with a European directive on the protection of personal data.