The Intelligence Bill was introduced to the Parliament on 19 March 2015 by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and presented as the government's reaction to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
[5] As early as 2008, the French government's White Paper of Defense and National Security stressed that "intelligence activities do not have the benefit of a clear and sufficient legal framework", and said that "legislative adjustments" were necessary.
These include: These surveillance powers can also be used by law enforcement agencies that are not part of the official "intelligence community" and whose combined staff is well over 45,000.
One hugely significant exception to the CNCTR's oversight powers are the bulk of data obtained through data-sharing with foreign intelligence agencies (article L. 833-2-3).
Techniques of communications surveillance covered by the Act include telephone or Internet wiretaps (L. 852-1), access to identifying data and other metadata (L. 851-1), geotagging (L. 851-4) and computer network exploitation (L. 853-2), all of which are subject to authorization of a renewable duration of 4 months.
The Act authorizes the use of scanning device (nicknamed "black boxes") to be installed on the infrastructures of telecom operators and hosting providers.
According to La Quadrature du Net, this means that the provision can now potentially cover "hundreds or even thousands of persons (...) rather than just the 11 700 individuals" reported to be on the French terrorism watchlist.