The legislative body of France has passed on Wednesday a second or revised version of the controversial “Three-strike Policy” aimed to cut the Internet connection of online users who were found “guilty” of illegally sharing files using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
Following the verdict of the constitutional court, which found the first version of the legislature was “unacceptable,” the French government has passed a second version of the three-strike policy despite clamor by the people that the law was anti-P2P.
The controversial HADOPI three-strike policy will be imposed on online users who were found guilty of violating copyright laws by illegally using P2P networks for file-sharing purposes for the third time.
The penalty includes damages payment and lifetime disconnection from the Internet.
However, critics refused to honor the law, saying that innocent online users might also be a victim of the law should hackers and other well-versed internet users used their network in order to elude conviction.
The pro-HADOPI 2 three-strike policy lawmakers won by a large margin 285-225, which was already passed the French Senate earlier.
Meanwhile, digital rights group in France said that the law violates the right for privacy of the people, saying that the new judicial procedures stated in the said law “restricted to only few categories”.
These categories include traffic regulation, which can also target open WiFi access points.
According to the revised law, these networks providers can also be answerable by law if they were proven guilty of not installing enough security measures to prevent illegal file-sharing activities.
“These clearly violate the rights of the people for fair and honest trial,” La Quadrature du Net said in a statement.
The group added that the new law does not include public hearing on the case and that ruling can be imposed immediately even without any prior judicial probe.
The groups, along with other rights activists, said that they would appeal to the constitutional council the new version of the law to further clarify its constitutional grounds.