French Court Clears Social Media Tracking Plan in Tax Crackdown

France's government can pursue plans to trawl social media to detect tax avoidance, its Constitutional Court ruled last week, although it introduced limitations on what information can be collected following a privacy outcry. From a report: The new rules, part of a broader law on tax changes passed by the lower house of parliament earlier this month, add to the state's surveillance powers by letting it collect masses of public data, as part of a three-year online monitoring experiment. Customs and tax authorities will be allowed to review people's profiles, posts and photographs on social media for evidence of undeclared income or inconsistencies.

Privacy vs States and Companies collecting data

[slashways]

Protecting privacy, in this world, is challenging.

Re:Privacy vs States and Companies collecting data

[Jahta]

Protecting privacy, in this world, is challenging.

This is not a privacy issue. They are simply looking at what people choose to post publicly on social media. So if you are claiming that you only earn €10,000 per year, but you are posting pictures of your brand new Porsche or Caribbean cruise on Instagram, then the tax man is going to have some awkward questions for you. Who knew?

This is no different from the bank employee who stole cash, and then posted pictures of it on Facebook and Instagram [slashdot.org]. If you are breaking the law, don't brag about it on social media.

Re:

[weilawei]

Yeah, but what if I'm lying?

Did lying to claim I own a Bugatti Veyron suddenly become illegal if I can find one to pose with?

Re:

[Jahta]

Yeah, but what if I'm lying?

Did lying to claim I own a Bugatti Veyron suddenly become illegal if I can find one to pose with?

Well pretending you own a Bugatti when you don't even have the price of a Fiat 500 [wikipedia.org] is pretty sad, but it's not illegal and, if the Bugatti genuinely isn't yours, then you won't have any problem if the tax man does come calling; except perhaps a bit of embarrassment.

These days lots of organisations, including many employers, routinely check out peoples social media presence. So, if you're faking it online, somebody is going to fact check you sooner or later.

Re:

[sabbede]

Then your lie has a consequence. Albeit a minor consequence that will be quickly resolved once they see you don't actually own one, but the fault remains entirely yours.

Is there any grounds for complaining when intentionally misrepresenting yourself comes back to bite you in the ass?

Re:

[weilawei]

I didn't ask if it had a consequence. Clearly, there will be some until the facts are made known, but what I asked was entirely different.

Is it illegal?

Re:

[sabbede]

Possibly. I don't know French law.

But is that relevant? If you've given the authorities probable cause to suspect you are committing a crime, it should be expected that they will investigate to determine if you are. Whether or not you have broken a law is what they're trying to determine. Assuming that your deception is not illegal in your jurisdiction, you can reasonably expect them to go away once they see you don't own the bike.

It doesn't matter whether or not you know you aren't doing something

Re:

[demonlapin]

IIRC Greek tax authorities used aerial photos and started comparing the property tax records for homes (1200 sf, no amenities) with what was actually there (4000 sf, swimming pool in the back).

Re:

[sabbede]

Every now and again, I forget the actual schedule, a tax adjuster comes by to look at my house and make sure I'm being charged properly.

The only difference I see is that aerial photos are probably more likely to catch someone lying out naked in their back yard.

Re:Privacy vs States and Companies collecting data

[jellomizer]

It is a very complex topic.
Most commercial internet based services offered to the public are offered at no cost in currency. But their income is collected from Advertising Revenue. This adverting revenue is based on how much of a bang for the buck the advertisers get for that site. A small site, alone doesn't have enough traffic to cover its cost if only 0.01% of all traffic clicks on the advert link, to a purchase. However if this small site is smarter about what they show, they may get it at 0.1% which would be enough. Now the bigger sites that have more resources will work harder to to make their ads targeted as well. So they will want to get more information to offer better targeted ads to its end users.

Today in near 2020 we have access to many services for no cost that would had costed each individual thousands of dollars in custom software back in the 1990's to get the same functionality.

However... the problem with this targeted advertisement is that scammers and political agendas can now be targeted as well. As well governments and other groups can collect and use this information determine their friends and enemies. Giving people custom "World views" helps radicalize them. Showing people you tend to not agree with to be shown as more vile and evil, while the people you tend to equate with to be more pure and right.

To make it worse. These companies which were built to be mostly self running, running off of algorithms vs human controls, just cannot adapt to how fast abusers and abuse the system. This is due to the size of the user-base for these companies, millions/billions of users with a company with not enough employees to help moderate everything. Facebook is fighting all these privacy rules, because it will kill the business to have the workforce to handle it. But it is facebooks fault for not properly allocating resources while it grew.

Re:

[Cajun Hell]

You mean in a world where certain types of people go to a lot of extra trouble to expose themselves? Yes, it's hard for someone who is fundamentally opposed to protecting their privacy, and who constantly undermines their own privacy, to have privacy. It's Yet Another one of those things where, if you truly place no value at all on it, and you're wiling to prove that you hold it to be worthless by doxxing yourself, then you won't have it.

Re:

[AHuxley]

The the user post images to local media of a lifestyle beyond what they can pay for, got gov permits for... reported for tax... how is that the gov at fault...
Someone in France who is doing things they dont expect their gov to never notice/investigate?
Dont upload images to any social media account...

Tracking is bad

[WoodstockJeff]

Unless it's to the benefit of the government.

Re:Tracking is bad

[Sique]

They don't track you. They just google your name and look if they find pictures a la "my new car, my new house, my new boat". And then they ask you how you paid for them.

Re:

[kmoser]

A photo of somebody driving a car doesn't mean that person owns the car. It may be rented. It may be borrowed. It may be Photoshopped.

Re:

[BitterOak]

A photo of somebody driving a car doesn't mean that person owns the car. It may be rented. It may be borrowed. It may be Photoshopped.

That may be, so when the tax man asks you about the car, simply tell them you borrowed it. When they ask from whom, you'd better have an answer ready!

Re:

[Sique]

If the picture is on your profile, and you subtitled it with "my new car", you have come up with some explanations.

Re:

[R3d M3rcury]

Heck, it may not even be accurate.

There's a company around here that has private jets for the bourgeoisie to go places. But they actually make a little extra money renting them out so people can take selfies of themselves on a private jet to impress their friends. They don't even have to take off--just charge the kids to get on the plane when it's on the ground, they can take their pictures, and then they walk over to the Southwest check-in down the street.

Re:

[The New Guy 2.0]

Americans have been prosecuted for this kind of thing for years now. Facebook is publishing, and the TOS lets the governments view everything. The news here is that the French government has agreed to pay snoops to look at this.

Re:

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Oh come on. It has nothing to do with tracking on the internet. Before social media, if you declared unemployment benefits in your tax return form and drove a Ferrari, the taxman would go after you. Here it's the same thing: the taxman just check your social media accounts to look for that Ferrari, is all.

Smart tax dodgers strive to look poor. Dumb ones expose their wealth, be it on social medai or real life, and get caught. Nothing new.

Re:

[Humbubba]

In France, there's protests, yellow jackets blocking roads and strikes going on - even some of the police are on strike. Macron and some of his politically elite buddies are trying to shift the tax burden away from the rich and onto the workers. This tax bill does that, and as Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin observed, its court approved enforcement-by-surveillance techniques are similar to those already used in Britain or the United States.

Re:

[jurtax]

True. French here, one of the main demands of the Yellow Vests is more "fiscal justice" (whatever that means but essentially less tax burden on the lower middle class and more on the upper class, to simplify). The budget of the French government is 240 billion Euro a year and Tax evasion is estimated at 80 Billion (low estimate - a figure often quoted by Yellow Vests). But as you say, this program will likely crack down on "small time" tax evasion.

Re:

[AHuxley]

Re "benefit of the government"...
Post a photo of the new solar on the roof, holiday, holiday home, new fully imported car ... the gov will have the power to find the published to the world images and look at the ip of the account...
Not working the hours to support that spending? Never paid much tax that year? That decade saw a low income every year to reduce any tax... ... Strange...
Images of a full hotel, restaurant ... but the tax collection reported is just enough to pay the workers...
Working long

Privacy is no more

[peppepz]

Technology has made it so easy to amass all kinds of data from our lives, with virtually no limitations in space and time, that no one can resist doing it, be it governments or private entities. I think that the next step will be for the government to be authorized to sell that data, always with the excuse of the public good: AI takes "big data" to train, and we don't want the Chinese to overtake us in the development of AI, do we?
To think that we used to look with disgust at the actions of autocratic stat

Basic intelligence test, apparently

[Rick Schumann]

So the effect this will really have on French citizens, is whether they're smart enough or not, knowing this new law exists, to not post evidence of tax evasion on (so-called) social media? Is this a financial experiment or a eugenics experiment?

Re:

[AHuxley]

Just an investigative tool.
Post the images, say the account is in France and from the user is from France...
The image of the faces return as people who have reduced their tax rate to the min. Reporting for their extra low income/almost failing "business"
But the images show a life of paying guests, paying users, paying into the "business".
Resulting in a unreported and very lavish lifestyle of holidays, sport, spending, travel, investments, homes...

The "financial experiment" will be a series of invest

Mass surveillance

[sinij]

Did you think that government could resist co-opting mass surveillance regime that social media created?

"Inconsistencies", nice word.

[gweihir]

So, I expect, that french citizens that have a bit different goals in life that the standard (but perfectly legal ones) can now expect to have their homes raided and their life-choices questioned. Also, should France ever slide into Fascism, this is the perfect base to decide who to send to the concentration camps. (No, they will not delete any of that data. Governments never do, regardless of what laws and courts say...)

Well, if you make your shot public,

[BAReFO0t]

by putting it on fucking Facebook,

don't come crying to us, if they catch you!

Basically, this is natural selection at work.
Always a good thing. Rare, but good.

Le Catch 22

[knorthern knight]

So how long before not having Fecesbook results in you being charged with spoilation of evidence?

Re:

[AHuxley]

Depends in the gov was collecting everything, every face in real time nice the start of "social media" .. with the word, France and French been the only part needed to save the data set.
Bit late for "spoilation of evidence" if the gov has their own copy over the past decade of all/any early and past social media use...
Unless the person is informed they are under investigation and they set accounts to private after been told not to do so...
Many govs/private investigators/mil keep everything published over

Wrong target

[pr0fessor]

Am I the only one that read the headline and thought they should crack down on social media companies evading taxes only to realize that's not what they meant?