However, rights groups have criticized the government’s approach, considering it a threat to civil liberties. Activists remain unhappy despite assurances that the security proposal does not include facial recognition technology and that real-time AI cameras will only be experimental for a period of time.
The Paris Olympics are scheduled from July 26 to August 11, 2024, with the experimental period ending in March 2025. Concerns have been raised that the government’s true intention is to make these security provisions permanent.
Noémie Levain, of the digital rights movement group La Cadrature du Net, said similar security arrangements would eventually become the norm at past Olympics in Japan, Brazil and Greece, and AI video surveillance would eventually become the norm. He said he was raising alarm bells about it being a tool for control and behavioral analysis. , may violate individual rights.
In an open letter, groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Big Brother Watch said the government’s AI video surveillance program was a serious threat to civil liberties and democratic principles and expressed concern. expressed.
France’s Supreme Constitutional Court has sanctioned automated video camera surveillance using AI algorithms to detect suspicious or unusual crowd activity during the upcoming Paris Olympics, ministers said, with around 13 million spectators. He insisted on exceptional safety measures for the event, which is expected to be crowded.
Rights groups have questioned definitions of unusual or questionable behavior and expressed concern about possible violations of the principles of privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and non-discrimination.
Katia Lu, advocacy officer at Amnesty International, stressed that while the government has promised not to use biometric data, data protection concerns are growing as algorithms analyze behavioral and body data. bottom. She stressed that automated surveillance technology has not been proven effective and cautioned against allowing exceptional measures to become permanent law.
The criticism comes after French President Emmanuel Macron made a proposal to shut down social networks to deal with mass riots sparked by the police killing of a teenager. It comes in the context of previous authoritarian denunciations.
