{
  "record": {
    "id": "b700d485-8c2a-49ee-b214-576b96557a12",
    "code": "PAI-B700D485",
    "force": "Police nationale",
    "country": "France",
    "country_code": "fr",
    "is_country": true,
    "region": "",
    "technology": "Video Analytics Search (BriefCam)",
    "technology_slug": "briefcam",
    "vendor": "BriefCam (Canon)",
    "vendor_slug": "briefcam",
    "programme": "",
    "status": "operational",
    "stage": "in-use",
    "evidence": "regulator",
    "evidence_is_claim": false,
    "since": "2015",
    "legal_basis": "No specific statute authorised its use for its first eight years. The interior ministry's own inspection concluded it was used in a judicial, retrospective context rather than real-time administrative surveillance, which affects but does not resolve its legal footing",
    "oversight": "CNIL (formal notice of 15 November 2024); inter-inspectorate report (IGA, IGPN, IGGN), commissioned by the interior ministry and published October 2024",
    "notes": "One of two records (Police nationale and Gendarmerie nationale) for French use of BriefCam; the account below covers both forces.\n\nThis is more precise, and more interesting, than a flat operational status conveys, and is worth recording carefully. Investigative outlet Disclose revealed in November 2023 that police and gendarmerie had used BriefCam since 2015 without a clear legal basis, including its facial recognition capability, which is illegal in French public space. The gendarmerie suspended use three days after the report; the national police suspended use in December 2023. The official inter-inspectorate report, finalised February 2024 and published October 2024, examined approximately 600 total uses and found exactly one illegal facial-recognition use. It recommended lifting the suspension and continuing to use BriefCam in investigative services until it can be replaced by a sovereign French-developed system, Systeme V, which has no facial recognition capability and was still described as under development in parliamentary answers as recently as mid-2025. This entry is recorded as operational on the basis that the report recommended resuming use pending that replacement, but the transition to Systeme V should be treated as ongoing rather than complete.\n\nUpdate, November 2026. The CNIL (Decision MED-2024-150 of 15 November 2024, summarised in its notice of 5 December 2024) served a formal notice on the Interior Ministry to send all missing conformity commitments and data protection impact assessments for its video-analysis software, and to remove or restrict BriefCam's facial recognition feature. The CNIL found that investigative services have used BriefCam-type software since 2015 on recorded footage in judicial investigations, that police and gendarmerie do not use augmented cameras on live public-road images for operational purposes, that one isolated facial recognition use in a judicial investigation was reported, and that no real-time facial recognition use was found. It treats these tools as judicial matching software governed by Articles 230-20 et seq. and R. 40-39 et seq. of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Decree 2012-687, with case-by-case magistrate authorisation.",
    "source": "CNIL, notice of 5 December 2024; Ministry of the Interior inter-inspectorate report, October 2024",
    "source_url": "https://cnil.fr/fr/utilisation-briefcam-logiciels-analyse-video-par-etat-communes-la-cnil-prononce-plusieurs-mises-en-demeure",
    "last_checked": "2026-11-04",
    "record_url": "https://www.policeainews.com/tracker/record/b700d485-8c2a-49ee-b214-576b96557a12"
  },
  "licence": "https://www.policeainews.com/data#licence"
}