France’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the use of surveillance cameras with detection systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is legal. Despite opposition from 60 MPs, the court said that the law did not violate privacy rights as people will “permanently control the design, implementation and possible further development of algorithmic processing.” The French parliament approved the controversial bill that would allow the use of algorithm-based camera systems, including with drones and airplanes, to detect suspicious behaviour around the Olympic games in real-time.
Monitoring program runs beyond the Olympic games until March 2025. Before the lawmakers voted, 37 civil society organisations had warned that the initiative paved the way for “invasive, algorithm-controlled video surveillance under the pretext of securing major events.” With the law, France becomes the first EU member state to “expressly legalise such practices.”
However, the proposed surveillance powers “violated international human rights law.” Civil rights activists fear that the initiative will pave the way for biometric mass surveillance. The suing representatives complained that the project violated the rights to freedom of movement, assembly, expression and respect for privacy.
In their judgment, the constitutional judges concede and emphasise on specific safeguards for fundamental rights regarding “systematic and automated analysis” of recorded images “to prevent violations of public order.” The highest French court also holds in favour of the French legislature in that automated facial recognition is prohibited, and authorities must ensure that biometric surveillance is not required. The recordings and information collected by the cameras should not be linked to other databases.
French government is to strengthen “the security of every dimension of the games” and to better protect the population. Conversely, civil rights activists have been called for protests to prevent the expansion of biometric surveillance. The law may first seem like it compels algorithmic mining of the data with biometric recognition. However, there are specific provisions which restrict the use of biometric data.
Last week, the leading committees of the European Parliament called for a ban on systems for emotion recognition and biometric categorisation and identification in public spaces.
