The French Digital Council has been given a mandate to examine Article 9 of the bill on scaling up counter-terrorism provisions. These provisions amend Article 6 of the Act of 21 June 2004 on confidence in the digital economy (LCEN) by providing for the administration to block websites containing speech and/or images constituting incitement to terrorism or in defence of terrorism. They also extend the scope of the notification tools that technical service providers are bound to use.
The French Digital Council has held fifteen interviews with terrorism experts (sociologists, journalists and association representatives), specialised lawyers and judges, civil society representatives, intelligence agency members and digital professionals to be able to deliver as fully informed an opinion as possible.
The Council is of the opinion that:
The proposed blocking mechanism is technically inefficient;The proposed measure is unsuited to the challenges of countering terrorist recruitment;The proposed measure does not provide sufficient guarantees in terms of freedoms;There are more effective and protective alternatives to the administrative blocking vis-à-vis Internet service providers;Other solutions could be considered to extend the scope of notification tools.