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When French
prosecutors targeted Telegram boss Pavel Durov, they had a tough new law with
no international equivalent that criminalizes tech titans whose platforms
enable illegal products or activities.
The so-called
LOPMI law, which came into effect in January 2023, put France at the forefront
of a group of nations taking a tougher stance on criminal websites. But because
the law is new, there is no judgment on it yet.
As the law has
yet to be tested in court, France's pioneering push to prosecute figures like
Durov could backfire if judges refuse to sanction tech bosses for alleged
wrongdoing on their platforms.
Last month, a
French judge placed Durov under official investigation. The head of Telegram
has been charged with various crimes, including the 2023 crime:
"Participating in the administration of an online platform to enable an
illegal transaction in an organized gang", for which he can be punished
with up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euro.
Durov, who was released on bail, denies that Telegram is an "anarchic paradise". The platform said it "complies with EU laws" and that it is "absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for misuse of that platform".
In a radio
interview last week, Paris prosecutor Lor Becquot hailed the 2023 law as a
powerful tool to fight organized crime groups that increasingly operate online.
According to Adam
Hickey, a former US deputy assistant attorney general who created the Justice
Department's National Security Cyber Program, neither the US nor the rest of
Europe has a law similar to France's.
Hickey explained
that U.S. prosecutors can charge a tech boss as an "accomplice or aider
and abettor of crimes committed by users," but only if there is evidence
that "the operator intends to engage its users in, and itself facilitates,
criminal activities."
He recalled the
2015 conviction of Ross Ulbricht, whose Silk Road website hosted drug sales.
U.S. prosecutors allege that Ulbricht "knowingly operated Silk Road as an
online criminal marketplace ... beyond the reach of law enforcement."
Ulbricht received a life sentence.
Timothy Howard,
the former US federal prosecutor who put Ulbricht behind bars, was
"skeptical" that Durov could be convicted in the United States
without proof that he knew about Telegram's crimes and actively facilitated
them - especially given the vast, mostly legal nature of Telegram's user base.
Howard thinks the French law seems like an "aggressive theory".
French cyber law
professor Michel Séjean said the tougher legislation in France came after
authorities grew irritated with companies like Telegram.
The 2023 law
stems from the French Interior Ministry's 2020 White Paper, which called for
major investments in technology to deal with growing cyber threats.
It was followed
by a similar law in November 2023 that included a measure for real-time
geolocation of people suspected of serious crimes by remotely activating their
devices. A proposal to turn on the cameras and mouthpieces of their devices so
investigators could watch or listen was rejected by France's Constitutional
Council.
These new laws
have given France some of the toughest tools in the world to tackle cybercrime,
as evidenced by Durov's arrest, said Sadri Porlon, a French lawyer specializing
in communications technology law.
Tom Holt, a
professor of cybercrime at Michigan State University, said LOPMI "is a
potentially powerful and effective tool if used properly," particularly in
investigations of child sexual abuse images, credit card traffic and
distributed denial-of-service attacks. , which are aimed at businesses or
governments.
source: News.bg
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