Censées allow the detection of suspicious movements in the middle of a crowd, cameras with algorithms will be experienced this year, in order to be operational for the Olympic Games.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
This is the flagship article of the Olympic bill, very security focused. The Senate largely voted on Tuesday, January 24 for the experimentation of cameras with algorithms from this year. The objective is to be able to deploy this device for the 2024 games.
For the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, this text contains “the essential adjustments to go after our commitments and our operational needs for the delivery and the smooth running of the Olympic Games”. The debate has been peaceful including on the most sensitive points. The article was voted by 243 for and 27 against.
This law arrives a few months after the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France. Spectators without tickets climbing the grids, holders of tickets blocked at the entrance, sprayed families of tear gas by the police or thefts and attacks, the final had turned to the nightmare.
To secure the Paris Olympics, likely to attract 13 million spectators, and some 600,000 people for the opening ceremony along the Seine quays on July 26, the help of cameras to detect movements suspect in crowds is claimed by the authorities.
Both near the speakers and in adjacent transport, they will also be able to detect “abandoned objects”, or allow “statistical analyzes, attendance flows for example”, according to the impact study of the law .
Opposition of Communists and Ecologists
The measure is not to the taste of the National Bar Council (CNB). “Lawyers will not let the Olympic Games transform into a Lépine competition of attacks on individual freedoms,” said President Jérôme Gavaudan on Tuesday. The Association La Quadrature du Net is not offering either.
Communist and environmental senators have marked their opposition. “The Olympic Games are a pretext for playing apprentice wizards, the market is enormous,” regretted the environmental senator Thomas Dossus, even though these are “absolutely not mature technologies” which could “feed” systems Then potentially useful for “tyrannies on the other side of the world”. Eliane Assassi (PCF) castigated “an accelerator of surveillance” and a “Trojan horse” text.
On the side of the PS, the senators are concerned “to support development in good conditions”. But they did not manage to bring back to September 2024 and not June 2025 the end of the experimental period.
The experimentation of these new tools may start from the entry into force of the law, but also for “recreational” and “cultural” events. The text was retouched by the Government after the opinion of the National IT and Liberties Commission (CNIL) and the Council of State.
No facial recognition
he takes over the evening session, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, came to defend this measure, explaining that it was important to “develop a French framework” after a little earlier Amélie oudéa- Castéra reiterated that the government “did not want facial recognition for the Olympic Games”. Marc-Philippe Daubresse (LR) indicated Tuesday that it would table a bill on the subject.
every day new crossed, sudoku and words found. Playing section>
The Minister of the Interior also defended the measure allowing to “screen” the people intervening in the fan zones (submit them to an administrative investigation) because otherwise, “we would leave a huge field of action to terrorists “. An LR amendment to be able to screen the “temporary workers” has been adopted.
Another security measure: body scanners, which could come to supplant the lack of private security agents, especially women, which everyone anticipates. The establishment of these scanners comes “before coming to the army,” said Darmanin, responding to David Assouline (PS) who filed an amendment on the subject.
A solemn vote is scheduled for January 31.