You built a pool in your garden, without declaring it to the administration? The tax authorities or your municipality will not be able to flush it out with a drone so as to reassess your property tax, your housing tax or even your property tax. This is what one learns from reading a January 11th response from the Department of Territorial Cohesion to a written question from Moselle Senator Jean-Louis Masson (unlisted). The latter asked in effect "if a municipality can use a drone to carry out controls of private properties, to the effect, in particular, to note possible infringements of urban planning rules or non-declaration of creation of pools for the calculation of the local tax base ".

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Alas for the communes, the proofs can not be collected by any means. In fact, the government explains, they must not have been collected "in circumstances constituting an offense" or in disregard of respect for private life. But filming the garden of a taxpayer by means of a drone can be considered "as an interference in private life". Therefore, the ministry concludes, "the finding of an offense on private property using a drone can be considered unlawful if the controlled area is inaccessible to view". Given this reasoning, an informed commentator wondered on Twitter if the tax adjustments based on the scrutiny of private properties on Google Earth were themselves lawful or tainted the privacy of taxpayers targeted.