{"id":269828,"date":"2024-07-22T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=269828"},"modified":"2024-07-19T05:25:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T04:25:03","slug":"ai-mass-surveillance-at-paris-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/ai-mass-surveillance-at-paris-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Mass Surveillance at Paris Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It won\u2019t be just human eyes monitoring the thousands of security cameras at the Paris Olympics. Martin Bureau\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

A Legal Scholar on the Security Boon and Privacy\u00a0Nightmare<\/em><\/p>\n

17 Jul 2024 <\/em>– The 2024 Paris Olympics is drawing the eyes of the world as thousands of athletes and support personnel and hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe converge in France. It\u2019s not just the eyes of the world that will be watching. Artificial intelligence systems will be watching, too.<\/p>\n

Government and private companies will be using advanced AI tools and other surveillance tech to conduct pervasive and persistent surveillance before, during and after the Games. The Olympic world stage and international crowds pose increased security risks so significant that in recent years authorities and critics have described the Olympics as the \u201cworld\u2019s largest security operations outside of war<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French government, hand in hand with the private tech sector, has harnessed that legitimate need for increased security as grounds to deploy technologically advanced surveillance and data gathering tools. Its surveillance plans to meet those risks, including controversial use of experimental AI video surveillance, are so extensive that the country had to change its laws to make the planned surveillance legal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The plan goes beyond new AI video surveillance systems. According to news reports, the prime minister\u2019s office has negotiated a provisional decree that is classified<\/a> to permit the government to significantly ramp up traditional, surreptitious surveillance and information gathering tools for the duration of the Games. These include wiretapping; collecting geolocation, communications and computer data; and capturing greater amounts of visual and audio data.<\/p>\n

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French President Emmanuel Macron reviews surveillance cameras in preparation for the Paris Olympics.<\/span> Christophe Petit Tesson\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am a law professor and attorney<\/a>, and I research, teach and write about privacy, artificial intelligence and surveillance. I also provide legal and policy guidance on these subjects to legislators<\/a> and others. Increased security risks can and do require increased surveillance. This year, France has faced concerns about its Olympic security capabilities and credible threats<\/a> around public sporting events.<\/p>\n

Preventive measures should be proportional to the risks, however. Globally, critics claim that France is using the Olympics<\/a> as a surveillance power grab and that the government will use this \u201cexceptional\u201d surveillance justification to normalize society-wide state surveillance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there are legitimate concerns about adequate and effective surveillance for security. In the U.S., for example, the nation is asking how the Secret Service\u2019s security surveillance failed to prevent<\/a> an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13, 2024.<\/p>\n

AI-powered mass surveillance<\/h2>\n

Enabled by newly expanded surveillance laws, French authorities have been working with AI companies<\/a> Videtics, Orange Business, ChapsVision and Wintics to deploy sweeping AI video surveillance. They have used the AI surveillance during major concerts, sporting events and in metro and train stations during heavy use periods, including around a Taylor Swift concert and the Cannes Film Festival. French officials said these AI surveillance experiments went well and the \u201clights are green\u201d for future uses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The AI software in use is generally designed to flag certain events like changes in crowd size and movement, abandoned objects, the presence or use of weapons, a body on the ground, smoke or flames, and certain traffic violations. The goal is for the the surveillance systems to immediately, in real time, detect events like a crowd surging toward a gate or a person leaving a backpack on a crowded street corner and alert security personnel. Flagging these events seems like a logical and sensible use of technology.<\/p>\n

But the real privacy and legal questions flow from how these systems function and are being used. How much and what types of data have to be collected and analyzed to flag these events? What are the systems\u2019 training data, error rates and evidence of bias or inaccuracy? What is done with the data after it is collected, and who has access to it? There\u2019s little in the way of transparency to answer these questions. Despite safeguards aimed at preventing the use of biometric data that can identify people, it\u2019s possible the training data captures this information and the systems could be adjusted to use it.<\/p>\n

By giving these private companies access to thousands of video cameras already located throughout France, harnessing and coordinating the surveillance capabilities<\/a> of rail companies and transport operators, and allowing the use of drones with cameras<\/a>, France is legally permitting and supporting these companies to test and train AI software on its citizens and visitors.<\/p>\n

Legalized mass surveillance<\/h2>\n

Both the need for and the practice of government surveillance at the Olympics is nothing new. Security and privacy concerns at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing were so high that the FBI urged \u201call athletes\u201d<\/a> to leave personal cellphones at home and only use a burner phone while in China because of the extreme level of government surveillance.<\/p>\n

France, however, is a member state of the European Union. The EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation<\/a> is one of the strongest data privacy laws<\/a> in the world, and the EU\u2019s AI Act<\/a> is leading efforts to regulate harmful uses of AI technologies. As a member of the EU, France must follow EU law.<\/p>\n

France has cleared the way legally to expand its use of AI in surveillance of public places:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n