Commentary: AI mass surveillance at Paris Olympics – security boon or privacy nightmare?

AI-POWERED MASS SURVEILLANCE

Enabled by newly expanded surveillance laws, French authorities have been working with AI companies 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 “lights are green” for future uses.

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 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.

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 analysed to flag these events? What are the systems’ 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’s 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’s possible the training data captures this information and the systems could be adjusted to use it.

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