Opinion

Full reference: Frison-Roche, M.-A., Compliance by Design, a new weapon? Opinion of Facebook about Apple new technical dispositions on Personal Data protection, Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation, 31st of August 2020 Read by freely subscribing other news of the Newsletter MAFR – Law, Compliance, Regulation   Summary of the news: Personal Data, as they are information, are Compliance Tools. They represent a precious resource for firms which must implement a vigilance plan in order to prevent corruption, money laundering or terrorism financing, for examples. It is the reason why personal data are the angular stone of "Compliance by design" systems. However, the use of these data cannot clear the firm of its simultaneous obligation to protect these same personal data, that is also a "monumental goal" of Compliance Law.  In order to be able to exploit these data in an objective of Compliance and protecting them in the same time, the digital firm Apple adopted for example new dispositions in order to the exploitation of the Identifier For Advertisers (IDFA) integrated in the iPad and in the iPhone and broadly used by targeted advertising firms, is conditioned to the consumer's consent. Facebook reacted to this new disposition explaining that such measures will restrict the access to data for advertisers who will suffer from that. Facebook suspects Apple to block the access to advertisers in order to develop its own advertising tool. Facebook guaranteed to advertisers who work with it that it will not take similar measures and that it will always favor consultation before decision making in order to concile sometimes divergent interests.  We can sleep and already make some remarks: GDPR imposing to companies that they guarantee a minimal level of protection for personal data does not apply in the United-States. It is then possible that Apple acted through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), more than through legal obligation.  The mode of regulation used here is the "conversational regulation" theorized by Julia Black. Indeed, regulators let the forces in presence discuss.  This "conversational regulation" does not seem to be very efficient in this case and an intervention of administrative authorities or of judges could be justified via Competition Law, Regulation Law or Compliance Law, knowing that Competition Law will favor access right to information and Regulation or Compliance Law private life right.  The whole paradox of Compliance Law rests in the equilibrium between circulation of information and secret. 

► Full reference : J. Carbonnier, "Toute loi est-elle un mal ? (Is every law a bad thing?), in Essais sur les lois (Essays on Legisation), 2nd ed., Répertoire du notariat Defrénois, 1992, pp. 317-334. - ► Summary :  Jean Carbonnier takes as his starting point the coincidence in time between the announcement of Christ’s birth and the proclamation of the census by Caesar Augustus’s edict, and goes on to ask whether, in legal matters as in religious ones, the advent of the new law might be good news. It is accepted that many new laws were bad, but is the new law bad ‘in itself’? The author does not wish to let the distinction between favourable and unfavourable laws (a sociological criterion of interest) or the distinction between old and new laws (a psychological criterion of the clash between novelty and habit) interfere, so as to address the subject as neutrally as possible: is the law an evil in itself? This pits the law against case law, custom or equity, which might be superior, but then again the author takes a broader view and prefers to contrast law with non-law and pose the question even more radically: is law in itself an evil?   To begin with, Carbonnier demonstrates the necessity, the advantages and the beneficial effects of the law, which was particularly revered by the French Revolution and, above all, by the people because of the ‘benevolence of the law’. France remains steeped in this favourable legalistic prejudice. This stems from the sense of security it affords the people, because it is clear, precise and uncompromising, permanent, and because it serves as a means of communication between people. In the second part of the article, Carbonnier refers to Lacan, who, in relation to the law, invoked the figure of the father and predicted a future society without a father. Carbonnier wonders whether a lawless society is not about to emerge, or whether psychoanalysis, seeing castration in the law, still identifies it as an evil.  In any case, he sees in this an opposition to freedom and liberalism, the rejection of the law being associated with the rejection of the state. Quoting Maurice Barrès and his 1892 work, L'ennemi des lois, he shows that for Barrès, all law is an evil, because the world must organise itself spontaneously.  For liberalism, which is less romantic, every law is an evil because it hinders the spontaneous emergence of the general interest of the social group. Thus, to take Hayek as an example, the individual knows his own interest better than the law, and the sum of these interests gives rise to the general interest. Moreover, not only is the law pernicious, but, according to liberalism, it corrupts human nature, atrophies the will and diminishes responsibility, in a perverse pedagogy. In the third part of the article, Dean Carbonnier goes on to argue that the law acts more as a safeguard and is therefore a good thing, provided the legislator remains modest. He believes that the law is necessary because man is a sinner (in a nation of righteous people, the law would be unnecessary), citing Luther and Saint Augustine. The law is therefore indispensable insofar as it wields the sword. Indeed, the law must strike because the world is inhabited by evil. The Dean states: “It is in this sense that the law appears as an evil: not because it causes harm or does harm, but because it is linked to the existence of evil. It is the revealer of sin…”. He concludes: "Knowing that the law was given to curb evil, lawyers will use it without hesitation. Knowing that it is a source of evil, they will use it with restraint." It is in this self-imposed limitation that lawlessness emerges.   -