(credit: Freepenguin)

In the wake of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, France is bringing in new legislation extending the country’s temporary state of emergency to 3 months, and granting the authorities new powers to carry out searches of seized devices, and to block web sites.

Under the new law, police searches of digital equipment are no longer limited to the device itself, but may possibly also extend to consist of any data that is “accessible from the initial technique or offered for the initial method,” as the French digital rights web site La Quadrature du Net explains. In practice this implies police might use seized devices in order to search for “any variety of details on any kind of electronic device of any French resident and particularly any details offered via usernames, passwords collected throughout a police search, any content material stored on-line.”

The state of emergency legislation also extends measures place in place in November 2014 that enable France’s Minister of the Interior to block any web site “promoting terrorism or inciting terrorist acts.” Previously, the Minister was only in a position to force websites to be blocked after a delay of 24 hours, but now this occurs quickly.