The French economic newspaper Les Échos reports, that ARCEP, the French authority for telecom regulation, recently released a notice critical of the Olivennes law project.
ARCEP considers that, given the current state of technology, Internet Service Providers cannot implement the three strike measures.
First, ARCEP “suggests a delay of several months before the law comes into effect”, because the Internet service providers will have to build new tools to ensure their judiciary security.
Second, ARCEP reminds that the government, i.e. taxpayers, should pay for the implemtation of the three strike measures. Nevertheless, the law project does not plan this.
Finally ARCEP points out a problem unravelled earlier by Squaring the Net but not taken into account by the French ministry of culture : cutting internet access can, in some cases, imply telephony service interruption, including access to emergency services. Internet service providers are bound by the law to supply such services.
The Governement is confronted with an unsolvable problem :
- Either they exempt Internet service providers from providing mandatory emergency services to their users, which would be irresponsible. No human life should be endangered by copyright.
- Or they plan, that Internet Service providers may not be able to stop Internet access when this repression deprives the user from an essential service, and therefore, it would violate the fact that everybody is equal before the law.