He is in the front carriage of the “100 days” reform train, a political and media sequence launched by Emmanuel Macron. The “securing and regulating the digital space” bill was unveiled on Wednesday April 26, during the presentation of the global roadmap by the Prime Minister. In spirit, the text, currently in the hands of the Council of State, will strive to “transcribe on a digital scale the public order that exists in real life”, indicated Elisabeth Borne. His supervisory minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, will present it in full before mid-May, his cabinet tells L’Express.
About twenty measures are planned, including the transposition of the European DSA and DMA regulations into French law. Those rumored by the government or the press leave for the moment many questions unanswered as to their effectiveness. According to information revealed by the media L’Informé, confirmed by L’Express, a temporary ban (up to one year) of cyberstalkers from social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.) is thus under study. Cyberbullying is, according to the law, characterized by “repeated remarks or behavior having the purpose or effect of degrading the living conditions of the victim”, via the Internet. Punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros (if the victim is over 15 years old), the cases have multiplied in recent years, the most media having affected personalities such as the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau, the high school student Mila , or the former journalist Nicolas Hénin.
Its implementation “raises many questions about the future relations that the judicial authorities and the major digital platforms will have to establish, explains Pauline Debré, lawyer at the firm Linklaters. The sentences stretching from six months to one year of deprivation , who will ensure the control and monitoring of blockages on the platforms? A question also persists on the proportionality of the decision; a cyberstalker having acted mainly on Facebook could legitimately only be deprived of Facebook, whereas it is common today to combine several accounts on different platforms. Ten years ago, the first Hadopi law had already broken its teeth on the establishment of digital sanctions.
A dissuasive anti-scam filter
For social networks, the challenge will be new. Blocking one or more IP addresses, e-mails or a telephone number is neither sufficiently precise nor effective, as it can be circumvented very easily by using, for example, a VPN (virtual private networks), or by changing your e-mail address. When questioned, the ministry does not divulge details on the procedure to be followed. If not, implicitly, to urge social networks to provide a solution themselves, since they risk up to 75,000 euros in fines if they do not operate the sanction (350,000 in the event of Corporation).
The ultimate problem is that the future law on insecurity on the Web includes other flagship measures, which also risk proving to be ineffective or even powerless. The filter against scams, for example, will issue only a simple warning message to the Internet user in the event of connection to a dubious site. It would be above all an element of “deterrence”, assumes the deputy Eric Bothorel, specialist in these digital subjects, at the Parisian. The blocking of pornographic sites to minors, the other major subject of the law, finally still lacks a robust technical solution that respects the privacy of users, to be applied. The CNIL, the French personal data policeman, has already warned that there is no ideal solution. Even if he was given 100 days to think about it.