When Friday marks the official start of the Summer Olympics, prosecutors will now use particularly advanced electronic eyes to keep an eye on sports fans, commuters, locals and tourists on public transport. In a decree issued on July 19, the Paris Police Prefecture approved the experimental use of algorithm-driven video surveillance equipment in 46 Paris metro stations. This is in line with the law for the Olympic Games of May 2023, which has already undergone constitutional review and which sets the legal framework for the pilot project, which was initially approved until the end of March 2025. The widespread use of cameras for “intelligent” video surveillance in real time is therefore allowed.
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With this approach, the French government wants to enable security officials to detect suspicious behavior, unattended items, fallen people, fires, weapons, and threatening crowds. The equipment used did not enable biometric facial recognition, The Ministry of the Interior emphasizes. The algorithms and related artificial intelligence (AI) functions are trained to recognise only eight high-risk situations. French security authorities have used the technology in recent months with companies such as Videotix, Orange Business, ChapsVision and Vintix, for example at concerts by Depeche Mode and Taylor Swift, as well as at the Cannes Film Festival. tests.They feel very prepared for the massive use of video surveillance, abbreviated as VSA in French, during the Olympics.
“We turn cameras into a powerful surveillance tool,” Matthias Hollier explainedVintix’s co-founder told Wired magazine. With thousands of electronic eyes, it is impossible for police officers to react directly to each of them. So the system analyses “unknown forms in public places”. For example, the algorithm can count the number of people in a crowd and those falling to the ground and alert operators as soon as a certain threshold is exceeded. There is no automated decision. For Hollier, this approach is a data protection-friendly alternative to controversial facial recognition systems, such as those used at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Civil rights activists storming the VSA
According to French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, vigilance is necessary: France is “facing the greatest security challenge that a country has ever had to overcome in peacetime.” Civil society organizations such as European Digital Rights (EDRi), La Quadrature du Net (LQDN), Amnesty International, Algorithmwatch and Privacy International have long been campaigning against the initiative. They fear that surveillance measures violate international human rights law such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Privacy, freedom of assembly and the need for non-discrimination are at risk. The system will essentially have to record and evaluate people’s biometric characteristics and behavior such as posture, gait, movement or appearance.
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The LQDN has organized an event in collaboration with other civil rights organizations Anti-VSA campaign called for protests against the ongoing measures. Especially that one Use of AI monitoring in metro stations “raises questions about purpose”, even away from sports facilities The legal expert of the organization stressedNoemi Levene told Euractiv. She wants to know: “Are the cameras in the Republik subway station, for example, used to monitor people going to demonstrations?” Law professor Anne Toomey McKenna also warns about non-transparent, legalized mass surveillance in Telepolis, with a high potential for further data analysis and interference with fundamental rights. Critics do not believe that the experiment will actually end next spring.
(FDS)
