Question 17702 — judicial and legal professions

Summary

Ms. Anne-Cécile Violland draws the attention of the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, to the consequences of the decisions taken by the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) concerning judicial IT experts. Articles 230-1 and 706-102-1 of the code of criminal procedure allow legal experts regularly designated by the judicial authority to implement the technical means necessary to access, unlocking and exploitation of the digital data contained in the seals entrusted to them. These operations are now essential in many criminal proceedings, particularly those relating to sexual violence committed against minors. However, since 2022, ANSSI considers that certain digital investigation software used as part of these missions is subject to authorization administrative authority that it refuses to grant to legal experts. This situation forces magistrates to resort to the Technical Assistance Center (CTA), whose capacities are limited, leading to processing times that can reach several months, or even more than a year. These delays appear difficult to reconcile with the objectives pursued by the bill relating to the protection of children, which notably provides for rapid preservation of digital evidence and significant progress in investigations within three months of the filing of the complaint. They are also likely to compromise the effectiveness of investigations in the most serious cases, even though the courts continue to appoint legal experts to carry out the exploitation of seized telephones. Furthermore, several legal experts have filed an appeal before the Paris administrative court in order to challenge the refusal decisions opposed by ANSSI, with the support of numerous magistrates. However, the outcome of this procedure is not expected for several months. Under these conditions, he asks what is the Government's position on this situation and what measures it intends to take to guarantee that judicial experts can effectively carry out the missions entrusted to them by the code of criminal procedure, without administrative restrictions preventing or delaying their execution. He asks in particular whether the Government is considering a change in the regulatory framework or a legislative initiative intended to remove this difficulty, in order to reduce the delays in criminal investigations, in particular when they concern offenses committed to the detriment of minors.

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