French Supreme Court OKs Artificial Intelligence-powered Olympic Security Cameras

The highest court in France approved the deployment of artificial intelligence-powered video surveillance equipment for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and provided rules for how it would be used. Because it places permanent human oversight over the creation, implementation, and potential growth of algorithmic analysis, the court ruled that the law permitting the additional measures does not violate privacy rights.

For the Olympic Games, the French parliament adopted a contentious law in April that would enable the trial deployment of large-scale, real-time video systems supplemented by algorithms to recognize suspicious activity, such as unattended bags and crowd dynamics. The system is scheduled to remain operational until March of 2025.

The recent plan's approval by the Constitutional Council is a setback for privacy advocates who are opposed to AI-powered mass monitoring and for French MPs on the left who had opposed the decision.

However, the approach was upheld by the court because it prevents public order violations, as the ruling put it. Further, it was said that face recognition technology would not be used in the cameras, and that the surveillance equipment would only be employed at high-risk events like sporting games, festivals, and other cultural gatherings. Additionally, the council emphasized that officials should guarantee that information obtained by cameras will not be shared with other organizations.

According to the court, state legislators may only approve the use of the cameras for the reasons set out in the statute, and they must quickly terminate use if those objectives are no longer satisfied. The public sector will have to be transparent about who will be collecting private information, what events will be watched, and for how long. The legality of an individual user's choice to participate in the system may be contested.

The judicial ruling was met with approval by the French administration.

 

Source: politico.eu