It is one of those points of the law, sharp, technical, almost secret, which, however, fascinates the violators. On October 14, at the plenary session of the Court of Cassation, this question will be discussed: is it a crime or not to refuse to unlock a mobile phone by investigative services?
This is particularly true of a phone feature highly prized by drug dealers that links the home screen’s open code “decodingfrom all device data. Mandatory, which is now provided by all phone manufacturers, is a kind of automatic encryption.
However, the Criminal Code, which is strictly applied and does not support a wet finger interpretation, provides in Article 434-15-12 that: Refusal to provide judicial authorities with a “secret encryption convention” likely to have been used to prepare, facilitate or commit a crime or offense is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 3 years…
Source: Le Figaro
