Covert Internet investigations start in France

En français

Legal background

The law on the prevention of crime of March 2007 introduced in the French legislation the possibility for specially trained law enforcement officials to get in contact online with people suspected of committing offences such as the traficking of human beings, proxenitism or crimes against children on the Internet, and thus collect evidence of those infractions. Provocation of the offences is not allowed.

This is covered by articles 706-35-1 and 706-47-3 of the penal procedural code.

A decree, published in May 2007, describes in new articles D47-8, D47-9 and D47-11 of the penal procedural code the strict rules that “cyber-patrols” must follow when exchanging illegal contenton the Internet.

A recent legal instrument the arrêté March 30rd 2009, published last week, decides which specific units can host cyber-patrols and how the “cyber-patrollers” are trained and appointed. This same text defines the mission of the CNAIP, the French national centre in charge of the national child sexual abuse database, which is hosted by the Gendarmerie nationale in Rosny-sous-Bois. This unit is in charge of receiving all illegal content collected during criminal investigations of child abuse and fulfills the tedious task of examining all those images and videos, in relation with international counterparts, in order to try and identify perpetrators and victims.

What will cyber-patrollers do?

These new types of online investigators will connect to forums, exchange groups, discussion groups where suspected pedophiles go and chat with them, using a pseudonym or avatar. They will be in a better position to collect evidence of those offences, in particular the new child-grooming offence which was voted in 2007: making proposals of sexual nature to a minor under 15 years of age. This will hopefully allow to detect predators before they can meet with children and help and identify more of those people who exchange in more discreet forums pictures and movies of children being abused.

A French NGO is currently showing on television a series of prevention messages, which give advice on how to protect children from the risks of the Internet. This can be seen here, and you can see one of those video-clips below: