Faced with threats from all sides and investments from their foreign competitors, the internal and external intelligence services (DGSI and DGSE) are increasingly better equipped.
Microphones, computer espionage, booby-trapped phones: French spies are multiplying «intrusions», alerts the national intelligence policeman, who recommends adapting the control of services to their technological revolution. Some 24,000 people were monitored in France in 2023, i.e. 15% more than in 2022 and 9% more than in 2019, before the Covid-19 epidemic, points out the National Commission for the Control of Intelligence Techniques ( CNCTR) in its annual report published Thursday June 27.
For the first time, the “Prevention of delinquency and organized crime becomes the primary reason for surveillance”. The fight against terrorism observed a slight increase (7.5%). But beyond the numbers, “more significant (…) is the ever-increasing use of the most intrusive techniques”the report notes.
Strengthen the legislative framework for spies
Faced with threats from all sides and investments from their foreign competitors, the internal and external intelligence services (DGSI and DGSE) are increasingly better equipped. “Placing microphones in private places, collecting all of the person’s computer data, trapping telephones and computers: we are thus trying to compensate for the now low contribution of telephone tapping”liste la CNCTR.
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But unlike wiretapping, centralized under the authority of the Prime Minister, these “Specially intrusive techniques are directly implemented by the requesting services”then kept and exploited by them, writes Serge Lasvignes, president of the CNCTR. An independent body responsible for monitoring the use of technical tools by French services, the CNCTR has been calling for years for both strengthening the legislative framework for spies and increasing control over their activities. “This form of escalation seems difficult to resist (…). It is therefore appropriate to strictly supervise it”, warns the senior official. Otherwise “The risk is that of a progressive weakening of control.”
The tension is total on the “sovereignty files”the memory of the DGSE and DGSI, in which human intelligence, information from technical tools but also very sensitive exchanges with foreign services are stored. “We haven’t made any progress at all”Serge Lasvignes explains to AFP. “It has become a question of principle”. The memory of agencies is therefore almost a black box. “These are areas we don’t have access to.”regrets the senior official. Only the National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL) is authorized, but only if it is contacted by an applicant. “It is rare that people monitored by the services complain”he says ironically. As a result, while services become more efficient, control stagnates. “There is no issue of power” for the CNCTR, assures its president, but it is essential to ensure “coherent and coordinated control”.
The challenge of AI and facial recognition
The report also highlights the development of artificial intelligence (AI) which affects intelligence as much as the military field and social life. AI constitutes “a challenge for the regulator, who is already wondering whether the surveillance of a person will come to be decided according to criteria of which no human will know either the content or the weighting with certainty…”, points out the report. And all the more so since no authority exhaustively lists all the uses of AI.
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However, this is also present in social control, via so-called cameras “intelligent” or “augmented”equipped with tools for detecting anomalies, suspicious behavior and risky situations. The report also mentions the “biometric recognition processes, particularly facial recognition” who know “already significant uses in terms of security and preservation of public order in a number of countries (China and the United States in particular)”. A law adopted in 2023 authorized the implementation, on an experimental basis, of algorithmic video surveillance (VSA) during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
