The Constitutional Council says no to the use of surveillance drones

In a long-awaited decision rendered on May 20, 2021, the Constitutional Council censored certain articles of the law for global security preserving freedoms. The one concerning the use of surveillance drones by the police is one of them.

As a reminder, it is article 47 which organizes the legal regime on the use of aircraft by certain State services and the municipal police. By virtue of this text, they can “carry out image processing by means of cameras installed on aircraft traveling without anyone on board” under certain conditions.

The public must be informed

First of all, the public must be informed of the implementation of this device. Authorized persons can use drones for a large number of use cases, such as the prevention of attacks on the security of people and property in places particularly exposed to the risk of aggression, the protection of buildings and installations. public transport, regulation of transport flows …

The applicants, 60 deputies and senators, consider that this article infringes “disproportionately” on the right to respect for private life. Indeed, on the one hand, the use cases would be too “broad”. On the other hand, the guarantees provided would be insufficient. For example, the authorization issued by a judicial or administrative authority is not limited neither temporally nor geographically.

A poor balance between privacy and security

The Constitutional Council takes up the gist of these arguments and concludes that “the legislator has not ensured a balanced reconciliation between the constitutionally valid objectives of preventing breaches of public order and of finding perpetrators of offenses and the law. respect for private life “.

Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, said on Twitter that he took note of the decision of the Constitutional Council. “I will propose to the Prime Minister to improve the provisions which are subject to reservations of the Constitutional Council“, he wrote.

This legal framework, which has just been slashed, was acclaimed by the Council of State, which had repeatedly recalled the impossibility for the Paris prefecture to use surveillance drones because this use was not provided for by any text. .