Tag: France

France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school due to cloud data sovereignty, competition, and privacy rules

In August, Philippe Latombe, a member of the French National Assembly, advised Pap Ndiaye, the minister of national education, that the free version of Microsoft Office 365, while appealing, amounts to a form of illegal dumping. He asked the education minister what he intends to do, given the data sovereignty issues involved with storing personal data in an American cloud service.

German data protection authorities came to a similar conclusion in 2019 when they disallowed Microsoft Office 365 in classrooms in the state of Hessen.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/france_no_windows_google/

#technology #EU #datasovereignty #privay #cloud

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs launches open source toolbox to fight disinformation

Source: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

On the occasion of the 2019 European elections and ahead of France’s 2022 presidential elections, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched in 2019 a toolbox of open source software and open resources to fight disinformation. As of December 2021, Internet users can access software to detect fake Twitter accounts, assess the legality of political advertisement on Facebook, and use multiple further resources on good practices to counter disinformation. Further work is ongoing to develop and deploy additional online resources.

Fake news, disinformation, misinformation: in the past decade, the manipulation of publicly available information on online platforms and social media soared tremendously in Europe and beyond. In 2018, 83% of respondents to a Eurobarometer survey indicated that fake news represent a danger to democracy.

See https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/disinfo-open-toolbox-fight-disinformation

In the spirit of open government, France dumps 9,067 repos online with public sector open-source code, to show off its FOSS credentials

The release happened as a result of a decree of Open Government from 30 October 2019 after the French government joined the Open Government Partnership in April 2014. After two years of work, the site hit version 1.0 on Wednesday.

This really allows further re-use of publicly funded code, and also serves as a boost for their own small businesses who want to make use of it for themselves or to serve their customers.

See https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/11/french_government_foss/

#opensource #opengovernment #france #publicsector