Background
M. [T] [V] was placed under formal investigation for alleged criminal conspiracy and weapons and narcotics offenses. During a flagrante delicto investigation, a judicial police officer asked a qualified technical service on June 19, 2024, to extract data from his mobile phone. The judicial investigation opened on June 21, 2024, and the extraction-and-analysis report was dated May 20, 2025 and added to the case file the following month.
On September 12, 2025, M. [V] sought annulment of procedural acts and records. The investigating chamber of the Versailles Court of Appeal rejected his challenges and declared the proceedings regular through file item D 411. He appealed, arguing among other things that the phone-data access lacked the prior independent review required by EU law, that the technical work may have occurred after the flagrante delicto investigation ended, and that investigators may have bypassed statutory safeguards governing access to encrypted information.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation partially quashed the decision. Reading Article 4(1)(c) of Directive (EU) 2016/680 in light of Articles 7, 8, and 52(1) of the EU Charter, it held that access or attempted access to data on a mobile phone generally requires prior review by a court or independent administrative body, unless duly justified urgency exists; in an urgent case, review must follow within a short time. Article 60-3 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure is incompatible with EU law insofar as it provides no such independent review.
The investigating chamber could not infer urgency merely from the fact that the investigation proceeded under flagrante delicto rules. Because there was neither duly justified urgency nor timely subsequent review, that court had to determine whether objective and sufficient evidence supported reasonable suspicion against M. [V] and whether access to communications or sensitive data was justified by the seriousness of the alleged offenses and the investigative needs. Its failure to conduct that review required remand to a differently composed investigating chamber.
The Court rejected the other relevant challenges. Article 60 imposes no deadline for completing technical work validly requested during a flagrante delicto investigation. The special procedure in Article 230-1 also does not deprive judicial police officers of their Article 60 powers to access encrypted or authentication-protected data. The Court preserved all unaffected portions of the appellate ruling.
Key Takeaways
- French rules allowing investigators to access mobile-phone data without prior judicial or independently administered review must yield to the contrary requirements of EU law.
- Flagrante delicto status alone does not establish urgency; absent duly justified urgency, independent review must precede any access or attempted access.
- To obtain annulment, a claimant must be entitled to invoke the privacy violation and must show prejudice—specifically, that the access unjustifiably interfered with private life and should have been prohibited.
Why It Matters
The ruling supplies French criminal courts with a concrete framework for reviewing phone-data access conducted under Article 60-3. Courts must assess both the evidentiary basis for suspicion and whether the seriousness of the offense and needs of the investigation justified access to communications or sensitive information.
It also limits reliance on the procedural label attached to an investigation. Investigators and reviewing courts must establish actual urgency or ensure independent review, while defendants seeking annulment must demonstrate that the lack of review resulted in an unjustified privacy intrusion.