Police data collection: Altij advises privacy associations in successful action before French supreme administrative court

Altij advised Internet Society France, which campaigns for the protection of Web users, and HES, which defends the rights of LGBTI+ people, in a case before the Conseil d’État, France’s supreme administrative court.

The two associations requested the annulment of a government decree authorizing “GendNotes”: a notetaking application used by the gendarmes (a French law enforcement body equivalent to the police). They argued that GendNotes resulted in multiple infringements of data protection and privacy laws regarding the purposes, sharing and retention of personal data. 

In particular, HES and Internet Society France argued that GendNotes did not assign a clear purpose to the data processing and enabled interconnection with other, unspecified processing activities.

In its judgment, the Conseil d’État upheld the application on this point, agreeing that the decree authorizing GendNotes was too vague when it stated that personal data could be collected “with a view to its further use in other data processing activities, in particular through a system of pre-completion”. The Conseil d’État therefore ordered that this phrase be removed from the decree.

Altij’s team advising HES and Internet Society France was led by Managing Partner and head of IT/IP, France Charruyer.

For more information about our data protection practice, get in touch contact@altij.com.