(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
French Internal Affairs Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, announced on 14 February 2008 new measures to fight against cybercrime, including extending the websites blacklist and pushing for computer online investigations, without the permission of the country of the hosting company.
The Minister visited the Cybercrime Brigade that is located in Nanntere and announced a new "best practices chart" with the operators in order to block websites. According to the statements, the Norwegian model was taken into consideration, meaning the creation of a list with websites not only with child pornography information, but also the ones with information on making explosives or chemical weapons, terrorist propaganda and racial hate speech.
The way the authorities will work with the ISPs is not clear yet, because these ones don't seem too happy to make pages inaccessible by Internet users. The Minister talks about a "constructive dialogue", but the ISP will be asked to automatically block the access to a certain webpage when the Police is notifying them.
The French authorities admit that the task will not be an easy one, since most of the problematic websites are hosted out of the French border. Thus, out of the last year complaints, only 308 were referring to websites hosted in France, meanwhile 1552 referred to pages abroad.
The Minister has tried to explain that the new measures are not Big Brother-type surveillance methods, but that all is about "protecting Internet users".
Another measure planned by the Minister is a European platform for exchanging information related to cybercrime, within the Europol. She plans to take advantage of the French Presidency of the European Union from July to December 2008 to suggest the creation of an international cooperation in order to allow "distance online searches of computer systems, without a prior authorisation from the country where the server is hosted."
Other ideas include usage of geo-localization in a case brought in front of justice and identifying users via the payment methods to buy illegal services.
All these new ideas will be included in a draft law that will modify the law regarding internal security, that the Minister will present during this Spring.
Fight against Cybercrime: Michèle Alliot-Marie presents her plan
(only in French, 15.02.2008)
http://www.vnunet.fr/fr/news/2008/02/15/lutte_contre_la_cybercriminali...
Fight against crime on the Internet (only in French, 12.02.2008)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2008/02/13/01001-20080213ARTFIG00013...
Police gets tools for tracking illegal websites (only in French, 15.02.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/02/15/la-police-se-dote-d-o...
EDRi-gram: The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
(6.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.11/french-interior-interceptation