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Deutsch: Rechtliche Klagen und Petition gegen zweite französische „Horror-Da...

The French coalition of groups, associations, trade unions and political parties from the opposition is making it clear after its first successful 'No to EDVIGE' in 2008 led to the withdrawal of the EDVIGE intelligence database by the French government, after a massive citizen mobilization (more than 220.000 signatures of a first petition, including almost 1200 signatures from organizations, legal complaints, demonstrations, and all possible democratic forms of protest). It now says 'Hell no!' to EDVIGE, after the same government reintroduced almost the same database with two new decrees published on 18 October 2009.

The coalition has launched a new petition on 30 November 2009, calling on citizens to sign again against the new surveillance database. As things have developed so far, the French civil society firmness against EDVIGE remains intact: over only less than 3 days, more than 6100 individuals and 80 organizations have already signed, including main national associations, trade unions, and political parties from the opposition. Main members of the coalition, including French EDRI member IRIS, have filed legal complaints on the same day against the French government, asking the highest administrative Court (Conseil d'Etat) to annul the two new decrees. Other coalition members are preparing to join this legal action.

The French anger is first due to the government contempt of the democratic process: for the second time, Sarkozy's government by-passed the Parliament to introduce a surveillance database, despite its own commitment in 2008 to have the creation of any new police file decided by the Parliament. Even worse, Members of Parliaments belonging to the President's majority voted on 24 November 2009 amendments to a draft law on 'the simplification of the legislation', explicitly allowing such a creation by simple regulation.

Regarding the provisions of the decrees, the petition acknowledges the fact that the previous mobilization has allowed to avoid in the new EDVIGE database the collection of sensitive data related to sexual life and health. This doesn't prevent, however, the LGBT movement and organizations fighting AIDS to take again part in the mobilization against all other EDVIGE features remaining in the new database: it is an intelligence file, and no infraction needs to be committed before being filed to 'prevent violations of public security'; children start being filed at 13; On top of the many and, for some of them, sensitive data as defined by the French data protection Act in accordance with the 1995 directive, that are collected (identity, political, religious, philosophical activities as well as activities related to trade-unions; public activities, behaviours and movements; phone numbers and email addresses, vehicle registration, capital assets, and others that were already in EDVIGE N°1), a mysterious 'geographical origin' has been added to the categories of collected data. This latter category, which doesn't correspond to any legal definition, has been qualified as a masked way of gathering information related to the ethnic origin, and anti-racist organizations have soon joined the second 'No to EDVIGE' campaign.

EDRI previously reported that, during the Madrid Civil Society Conference on Global privacy Standards held last November, Peter Schaar, the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner, rightly underlined that "EDVIGE is a horror database for us, because it includes many persons that did not breach any laws - they are just 'risky persons'". It is very unfortunate that his French counterpart, Alex Türk, does not share this point of view. In a communiqué published on 22 October 2009, the CNIL has found that "the new decrees will allow relevant police services to use (the created databases) under conditions guaranteeing citizens rights and freedoms thanks to the CNIL control powers". One might wonder how and against which evidence the CNIL would be able to control the 'risk assessment' having led to file one person in the EDVIGE database, given the fact that no single infraction needs to be committed first.

"No to EDVIGE" coalition website (including petition with automatic update of signatures)
http://nonaedvige.sgdg.org

EDRi-gram: French Edvige Decree Withdrawn (3.12.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number6.23/edvige-retired

EDRi-gram: France Pushes The Introduction Of Edvige Project Through The Back Door (21.10.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.20/new-two-edvige-files

"No to EDVIGE" against police file creation by simple regulation (in French only, 26.11.2009)
http://nonaedvige.sgdg.org/spip.php?article1115

EDRi-gram: Declaration On Global Privacy Standards (5.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.21/privacy-standards-global

CNIL: From "Edvige I' to 'Edvige III": intelligence databases from now on better supervised and better controlled (only in French, 22.10.2009)
http://www.cnil.fr/la-cnil/actu-cnil/article/article//de-edvige-i-a-ed...

(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS - France)