The city will ramp up by 20% information-gathering services (wiretapping, geolocation, computer data, image and sound capture, etc.) for the duration of the Olympics.

The following report is by French paper TF1 , translated to English:

Smile, you are filmed and analyzed by artificial intelligence. RATP and SNCF have experimented this week with algorithmic video surveillance, first during the concert group the Black Eyed Peas, which took place in the hall of the Paris La Defense Arena on Saturday, April 20th.

Signs and posters have been installed at the entrances and exits of the testing areas to warn users. “It’s a test, we’ll see, I won’t feel safer”, entrusts one of them to TF1, [while] others seem more confident: “We see that technology is not only used for negative purposes, it can also be positive and avoid this kind of attack problem especially for events that bring together a lot of people.”

Crowd Movements And Forgotten Luggage Spotted

Concretely, the video cameras installed in the stations Nanterre-Prefecture of RER A and La Defense-Grande Arche of RER A and line 1 of the metro in the first case, then those of the 118 cameras installed at the Paris-Gare station in Lyon and the Garigliano bridge will be coupled with artificial intelligence. This system must make it possible to identify a non-compliance with the direction of traffic, the crossing of a prohibited zone, etc, a crowd movement or a forgotten luggage and to report it to the police. 

“In case of abandoned luggage, the object will be detected and an alert will be sent to an operator so that he can make decisions”, says Alan Ferbach, co-founder of Videtics, a startup that operates one of the AIs that will be used for the Olympics. Another situation: at the slightest movement of abnormal crowd, a red frame is added around the screen to report the anomaly to the police. 

Video surveillance without facial recognition ?

While these smart cameras can scan up to 25 situations per second, authorities say they will not allow the use of facial recognition. “At the moment, the law does not allow the deployment of facial recognition and especially the government has never wanted to implement a facial recognition device”, said Thomas Dautieu, director of legal support at the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des freedoms (Cnil). 

Indeed, the law JO 2024 adopted in 2023, allows only the experimentation of video surveillance analyzed by the AI until March 2025 to identify events or behaviors deemed at risk and alert an operator. But it does not allow facial recognition that allows you to examine the facial features of a filmed person and compare it to images in a database to identify him. However, this can be used “by the competent authorities” in case of “absolute necessity” within the framework of the Directive “police-justice” from 2016.

Human rights NGO Amnesty is calling for a total ban on facial recognition for identification purposes in public space already used by the British police “to identify potential criminals even before crimes are committed” and castigates the experimentation of algorithmic video surveillance in France, believing that the country “unfortunately fits into this trend by becoming, with the Paris Olympics, the first European Union member state to legalize algorithmic video surveillance”.”Once (these technologies) are there, we don’t go back”, Katia Roux, Amnesty International France.


AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Indeed, once someone goes down this path there is no coming back from it.

Another French paper, Le Monde, also reported: ‘According to Le Monde sources, the prime minister’s office is putting the finishing touches to a provisional, classified decree, which will ramp up by 20% information-gathering services (wiretapping, geolocation, computer data, image and sound capture, etc.) for the duration of the Olympics.’

They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Lamentations 4:18

[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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2 Comments

  • We’re not spying on you, we are making sure that you are safe; they are already spying on us, their are just saying it out loud. Remember it’s for your safety, coff choke LOL I have a right to be safe; boy it’s getting deep in here, ah hello dudes, ya doesn’t have a right to be safe.
    God is the only one that keeps ya safe and if ya go against Him, He will drop ya in the dirt

    Ya see their goal is total control over everyone, but alas we have a God that watches over us and protects us and nothing can remove us from His hand. God is in total control of everything that happens and that is going to happen. To day is a good to trust Him, ya don’t wanta see what’s coming round the pike.

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