PARIS: The use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based video monitoring during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris was approved by the French National Assembly on Thursday, despite protests from human rights organisations that the technology posed a risk to individual liberties.
The government says, algorithmic video surveillance can identify "pre-determined events," unusual behaviour, and crowd surges, helping in ensuring the safety of the millions of visitors that are anticipated to swarm the French capital next summer.
The greatest legislative obstacles have been overcome with favourable preliminary votes in the Senate and Assembly, while it may yet face a constitutional court challenge.
France would be the first nation in the European Union to explicitly legalise AI-driven spying. This would be creating a troubling precedent for spying, several dozen European legislators said last week.
President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party MP Stephane Mazars defended the technology by stating that "France will need to rise to the meet the largest security challenge in its history in front of the whole world."
Rights organisations like Amnesty International and digital rights organisations have resisted the intention to use AI surveillance vehemently. They contend that the technology imposes a perilous boundary on civil liberties.
The 577-seat chamber voted in favour of the text by a margin of 59-17. The discussion in France comes as the European Union is debating its own AI Act, a significant piece of EU legislation that has been in the works for more than two years and governs the use of artificial intelligence in Europe.
The EU legislation will examine AI application in the public sector and law enforcement in addition to uses by businesses.
The French government's law has the support of CNIL, France's privacy authority, provided that no biometric data is processed. The bill's supporters assert that this is the case, but privacy experts are dubious.
"You can do two things: object detection or analysis of human behaviour — the latter being the processing of biometric data," said Daniel Leufer, a policy advisor at the digital rights group Access Now, which is pushing for the EU's AI Act to forbid the gathering of biometric data in public places.
The head of the parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs for the ruling party, Sacha Houlie, argued in front of the lower house that AI may have helped stop the 2016 Nice assault by flagging the suspicious motions of the truck that was used to trample through the crowd. The crowd anarchy at the Champions League Final in Paris the previous year would have been avoided with the technology, he added.
The measure language has now been adopted by the Senate and the Assembly. Any disparities in the wording they came to agreement on during the discussion will be subject to compromise by a joint chamber committee.
Leufer of Access Now questioned the effectiveness of AI in identifying potential attackers due to the difficulties in training algorithms on infrequent occurrences.
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