France Plans Development of Database for Threatening Personalities

Last year, the French government expressed the intention to create a new law enforcement database dubbed EDVIGE (exploitation documentaire et valorisation de l’information générale). The purpose was to have a profile of every individual from the age of thirteen on up as well as groups and organizations which “on the basis of their individual or collective activities represent a potential threat to the public order.” Allegedly, anyone who had a direct relationship with these individuals, groups, or organizations would also go into the database. Access to the database would be available to the French intelligence service and the police.

Public outcry against these plans resulted in revisions to the proposed enabling legislation behind the database and ultimately the withdrawal of the legislation in December 2008. Now a third version of the bill is on the table (“EDVIGE 3.0”). The latest bill, however, reportedly would still subject children of thirteen years and older to inclusion in the database, and complaints have been raised that definitions governing the scope of the database are too broad. A summary of the latest bill in French is available here. The Austrian media organization Unwatched.org also has an article on EDVIGE in German.