[breton]

I am reading a bit more about this. In a similar case, where Fair Trials intervened, they made this submission: https://www.fairtrials.org/app/uploads/2022/03/FT-interventi... . In the submission there are these sentences:

> Law enforcement authorities may compel suspects to provide the passcode to their mobile device under threat of a legal sanction pursuant to Article 434-15-2 paragraph 1 of the French Criminal Code, [...]. The request must be sanctioned by a judicial authority.

What is this sanction by judicial authority? A court order? Can it be appealed against? Can i get a lawyer participate in the hearing for the sanction?

[rtsil]

Warning: IANAL.

Sanction here does not mean punishment, it means approved (the law itself says "upon request")

That article of the Criminal Code refers to two chapters of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which covers the two types of criminal investigations in France and their respective judicial authority: the prosecutor, and the judge of instruction (an investigative magistrate).

An order/request by the judge can be appealed against, I don't think the orders/requests of the prosecutor can be appealed.

[breton]

Thanks.

I raised the question, because i want to understand, how much police in France needs to do to issue an order to unlock a phone. It does not sound too bad to me, if they have to go through a judge and a hearing to issue the order.

[rtsil]

The problem is that the prosecutor can issue a blanket order that forces any person, company or organization to hand over to the police any and all digital information and data that may be related to the investigation. And as with all blanket orders, this gives a lot of leeway to the police.

[simonh]

France has investigating judges, maybe one of them would have the authority?