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The French data protection authority, CNIL, is one of the few authorities to have survived the French Government’s restructuring initiatives, which began in 2009. The government submitted to the Parliament a draft bill to merge several bodies in charge of the defense of civil liberties and individual rights: la Halde (authority in charge of discrimination); the defendant of children; the Ombudsman of the Republic, and the commission in charge of security ethics.
Still, in January, the government used the bill, which creates the new body of “
Défenseur des droits
” (defendant of rights), to introduce amendments to the Data Protection Act, including one to prohibit the president of the CNIL to carry out another activity during his/her term, including elective functions.
Although most of the government’s amendments make sense (although it may be argued that presiding over the CNIL should be a full-time job), one cannot fail to be surprised by these last-minute amendments brought in a text unrelated to data protection, while a bill modifying the Data Protection Act was voted on by the senate on March 23, 2010, and is still waiting to be put on the agenda of the National Assembly.
Two pieces of information come to mind:
- The current president of the CNIL is also an elected senator. He has been very active in raising data protection awareness within this chamber, and the Houses of the Parliament are a counter-power to governmental initiatives; senators are at the origin of the last bill to modify the Data Protection Act, which includes articles objected by the government during the debates.
- The CNIL has been taking views on various governmental projects such as video-surveillance and the law relating to internal safety (LOPPSI), which did not satisfy the government.
Is it a coincidence that a confidential temporary report of the “Cour des Comptes” (the Accounting Committee, a body in charge of verifying the finances of administrative bodies) about the CNIL’s finances was leaked around the same time and refers to alleged irregularities and excess in compensation and expenses?
Since then, the CNIL has indicated that it has replied to all observations made; whereas the
Cour des Comptes
expressed regret that the report had been disclosed, admitted that it contained errors and said that only the final report, which is not complete yet, should prevail.
These recent events show that data protection authorities, although independent, or likely because they act in an independent way, may be subject to pressure of all kinds—direct or indirect, express or not.
