French Police extends the Internet blacklist

(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_cybercriminalite___michele_alliot_marie_degaine_son_plan

Fight against crime on the Internet (only in French, 12.02.2008)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2008/02/13/01001-20080213ARTFIG00013-guerre-contre-lacriminalite-surinternet.php

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-outils-pour-traquer-les-sites-illicites_1011842_3224.html

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