I. Introduction

In the introduction to his 2012 work entitled Crisis(es) and Law, Jacques Larrieu defines crisis as a ‘disorder’ causing ‘the disintegration of the norms that usually regulate society’. This disorder can in turn give rise to a ‘law of circumstance’ which is to be considered dangerous but which can also be a source of progress as it invites specialists to conceive of a ‘new legal system that draws lessons from the crisis’.

Digital technology is an important part of the response to crises, and its use in the service of the struggle against them plays a major role in the disruption of the functioning of our legal system, in an undoubtedly more insidious than conscious manner. Of course, the upheaval that digital technology causes in the legal system is not specific to times of crisis. What is unmistakably specific to such times, however, is how this tool is used during periods of unrest, and how its legitimisation makes the law forget its own foundations. If digital technology is sometimes the object of specific legislation, it is above all because it constitutes the very condition of the effectiveness of the regulatory measures taken by our governments, an effectiveness that runs the risk of negating certain freedoms.

Should the use of such effective tools therefore be abandoned? The answer is ‘no’, but it is undoubtedly necessary to limit their implementation with a legal framework adapted to these exceptional times. The goal of this reflection, therefore, is to guide the development of such a framework, in the same way as Gligorijević attempts to do in Chapter 5 of this collection.

The present reflection covers two areas of application. The first concerns the lessons learned during the struggle against the pandemic. The measures implemented today against COVID-19, or those envisaged for use against future pandemics, all have a restrictive impact on freedoms that goes beyond their simple limitation and sometimes represents a challenge to their very essence.