Identity control, activity control: from trust to suspicion

Processes introducing biometric identity control and communicating activity controls through data retention sign, in France and Europe, a reversal of perspective. Taking into account the legislative and regulatory transformations as well as the strategies of government and industry actors, and considering the various means of consent from the general public, we will analyze several levels of this change of paradigm: security objectives centered on intelligence rather than legal investigation; legislative and judicial proceedings oriented towards soft and contract law; intervention of private actors with prerogatives of public power; preventive rather than repressive civil or penal actions, specially through the use of technical means; sometimes inversion of the burden of the proof, requiring proving innocence rather than guilt. This results in the change from a conception of society based on mutual trust into a situation of generalized suspicion.