Background
M. [E] [T] was placed under formal investigation on April 25, 2024, for organized armed robbery, criminal conspiracy, and arbitrary arrest, abduction, detention, or confinement. On October 25, 2024, he applied to the Paris Court of Appeal’s investigating chamber to annul portions of the proceedings.
He challenged reports based on searches of three databases—the criminal-records processing system (TAJ), the automated license-plate recognition system (LAPI), and the national automated DNA database (FNAEG)—arguing that the record did not establish the investigators’ individual and special authorization. He also challenged reports concerning surveillance footage obtained from a business, a municipal surveillance center, and a hotel, contending that the investigators and the persons supplying the footage lacked documented authorization. The investigating chamber rejected those challenges, and M. [T] appealed to the Court of Cassation.
The Court’s Holding
The Criminal Chamber dismissed the appeal. It held that signed individual certificates, read together with a common annex marking the three databases at issue, adequately established that each of the three investigators was authorized to consult TAJ, LAPI, and FNAEG. It also rejected the defense’s claim that the authorization document had escaped adversarial scrutiny: counsel had obtained an adjournment because the document was initially missing, but the challenged decision did not show that counsel renewed that objection at the rescheduled hearing.
As to surveillance footage, the Court distinguished direct, interconnected police access to a surveillance system from footage viewed or obtained through a request to the entity operating the system, or supplied spontaneously by that entity. The individual-designation and authorization rule governing direct police access under Article L. 252-3 of the Internal Security Code does not restrict investigators’ requisition powers under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Nor must judicial police officers be specially authorized to receive footage from a system operator.
The Court further held that operators of public-facing or public-space surveillance systems, or their representatives, are necessarily authorized to comply with police requests or provide footage spontaneously. Here, the business manager voluntarily supplied recordings, the police requested viewing and delivery of municipal surveillance recordings, and the hotel director was formally asked to provide recordings. Those circumstances did not require proof of separate individual and special authorizations.
Key Takeaways
- Signed individual certificates combined with a common annex identifying the relevant databases can prove investigators’ authority to access TAJ, LAPI, and FNAEG.
- Special authorization rules for direct police access to interconnected surveillance systems do not apply when police obtain footage from the system operator through a lawful requisition or voluntary delivery.
- Operators of surveillance systems in public-facing establishments or public spaces may provide their footage to judicial police without separate proof that either the recipient officers or the responding operators hold special individual authorization.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies the boundary between direct police access to live or interconnected surveillance systems and the acquisition of recordings from the entities that operate those systems. Only the former implicates the special individual-designation and authorization rule discussed in the Court’s November 13, 2024 precedent.
For suppression litigation, the ruling also confirms that authorization to search sensitive law-enforcement databases may be established through multiple documents read together, while emphasizing that an objection concerning an absent document must be preserved after an adjournment if the alleged defect remains.