It’s time to put that Instagram account on private.
A decree issued on February 13 is allowing French tax authorities to cast about various online platforms to find evidence of tax fraud. During a three-year experimental period, the Public Finances Directorate General (DGFiP) and French custom authorities will be able to use personal data from social media, but also from platforms like Airbnb or classifieds ads website Le Bon Coin, to feed their investigations, notably on people lying about their tax domicile.
But French tax evaders need not worry about sleuths sending them covert friend requests. Authorities can only collect publicly available data, which will go through a data mining algorithm.
“Close to a quarter of tax audits” are already supported by artificial intelligence data mining, argued DGFiP director Jérôme Fournel in an op-ed in Le Monde back when the measure was debated in parliament in 2019.
The French data protection authority, CNIL, said in a 2019 nonbinding opinion on the measure that it needed to strike a “strict balance between the goal of fighting tax fraud” and the need to respect public freedoms. “CNIL will remain attentive … to how the measure is effectively put in place,” the authority said in its statement at the time.
