The French government has been forced to end a program that provided tablets for convicted criminals.
The scandal erupted when inmates boasted about their Samsung tablets on TikTok—devices that were distributed for free as part of a 120-million-euro government program.
Although the tablets were supposed to have various IT restrictions, prisoners quickly figured out how to bypass them, posing a significant national security risk.
Even though nearly half of the allocated funds have already been spent, the government is planning to freeze the remaining 65 million euros that have not yet been used, the international V4NA news agency writes.
Currently, there are around 25 thousand such devices are in French prisons. The original goal was to allow inmates to perform various tasks, such as writing emails to their lawyers, organizing visitation schedules, and managing their prison accounts—all directly from their cells. This was also intended to reduce the workload of prison officers, who previously had to handle these tasks on behalf of inmates before the tablets were introduced.
Some criminals, however, saw a business opportunity in all this. They began charging fellow inmates 50 euros per video tutorial on how to unlock the devices, enabling unrestricted internet access.
Cover photo: Illustration (Source: Pexels)
