There’s a lot of news going around today about the French Government’s new policy to allow police to remotely take over a suspect’s devices, with access to cameras, microphones and GPS data. But if you think that’s uncommon, you’d be very mistaken.

Promising it would only be used in “dozens of cases per year,” French Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti yesterday welcomed new legislation allowing such spying for up to six months, where approved by a judge, in cases where possible sentences are at least five years. “We’re far away from the totalitarianism of 1984,” he added. “People’s lives will be saved.”