Paris: Opponents of the French government’s plan to test surveillance cameras powered by artificial intelligence at the 2024 Olympics have criticized them as unnecessary and dangerous security overreach.
While the government says such a system is needed to manage crowds of millions and spot potential dangers, critics say the bill is an important civil liberties move. considered a gift to French industry at the expense of
Last week, some 40 mostly left-wing members of the European Parliament warned in an open letter to French parliamentarians that the plan “creates an unprecedented surveillance precedent in Europe”. Le Monde report.
Debates will begin late Monday in the National Assembly, France’s lower house, and will continue on Friday.
Even before the debate began, MPs had already submitted 770 amendments to the government’s broad Olympic security bill, many of which aimed at Article 7.
That section stipulates that video recorded by existing surveillance systems or new surveillance systems, including drone-mounted cameras, is “processed by algorithms.”
Artificial intelligence software identifies pre-determined events, such as unusual crowd movements and abandoned bags, that are likely to “pose or reveal a risk of acts of terrorism or serious breaches of security” in real time. To detect”.
The system then notifies the event to law enforcement and other security services who can decide on a response.
Is it biometric or not?
Governments have a hard time reassuring that smart camera tests won’t process biometric data, especially relying on facial recognition. The French public is wary of the widespread application of technology.
Sports Minister Amelie Oudea Castella told parliamentarians that “experimentation is limited to very precise … (and) algorithms do not replace human judgment, which remains decisive. There is,” he said.
The interior ministry highlighted a February survey in the Figaro daily, which suggested that a majority favored the use of cameras in public spaces, especially stadiums.
Opponents, however, argue that the plan goes beyond the scope of the French constitution and European law.
Digital rights group La Quadrature du Net (QDN) said in a report sent to parliamentarians that, under the French rights ombudsman’s 2022 broad definition, the system is in fact a sensitive “biometric ” writes that it processes the data.
As biometric data, QDN claims these properties are protected by the European Union’s strong General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
A Home Office spokesman denied the findings, arguing that no biometric data or facial recognition technology was used in the planned processing.
’emergency’
The camera’s testing period is scheduled until the end of 2024 by bill. This covers other major events after the games, including the Rugby World Cup later this year.
Once the law is passed, public authorities such as emergency services and bodies responsible for traffic safety in the Paris region will be able to demand its use.
The Home Office said it “needs to cover a significant number of large-scale events” for the “most complete and appropriate assessment”.
However, QDN activist Naomi Levan said: AFPMore: “It’s classic that the Olympic Games are used to pass things that wouldn’t pass in normal times.”
“I understand that there are exceptional measures for exceptional events, but we are going beyond text aimed at securing the Olympics,” Socialist MP Roger Biko said on Monday. spoke in parliament.
Elise Martin, a member of parliament following the process of the far-left opposition France Unboud (LFI), said: AFPMore The bill is just the latest in a number of additional security powers introduced under President Emmanuel Macron since 2017.
“The way this law was conceived is as if we were living in a permanent emergency,” she said.
“Industry advantage”
Meanwhile, QDN’s Levain stressed that “many of the leaders in this market are French companies” and said the bill’s provisions “favor industry”.
According to a 2022 article published by industry group AN2V, the size of the video surveillance market in France alone is estimated at €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion), and the global business is many times larger.
If the law is passed, Levain said the 2024 Olympics would become a “security window and laboratory,” giving companies the opportunity to test systems and collect training data for their algorithms. .
Some French cities, such as the Mediterranean port of Marseille, are already using “enhanced” surveillance in what is now a legal gray zone.
Such data is needed to train a computer program on the types of behavior that it flags as suspicious, so that it can recognize patterns in videos. Just like a text AI such as ChatGPT is trained on large amounts of sentences before generating its own written output.
But opponents say there is little to no evidence that enhanced surveillance, or even traditional CCTV systems, can prevent crimes and other incidents involving large-scale sporting and cultural events covered by the bill. I’m here.
At last year’s Stade de France, Levain said smart cameras “wouldn’t have changed anything” when the crowds of Liverpool fans waiting to play in the Champions League final were crammed into a small space. rice field.
“This was a human mismanagement. You have the know-how to manage crowds and you have to do the math to place barriers and direct the flow. Cameras can’t do that,” she added. .
