The LFI group indicated on Tuesday that it was “in the process of taking legal action” and called for a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the “facial recognition scandal”, after press reports concerning the use of software by the police video surveillance. “It’s a huge scandal,” said LFI deputy Aurélien Saintoul, during his group’s press briefing at the Assembly.
“Our reaction is twofold. Our group is in the process, through Ugo Bernalicis (LFI deputy of the North), of taking legal action under article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. We are also filing a request for a commission of “(parliamentary) investigation into this subject which is extremely serious”, he continued. The fate of this request for a parliamentary commission of inquiry is however uncertain, since the LFI group has already used its annual “drawing right” on another subject, which allows it to de facto obtain this type of commission in the Assembly. .
“A serious attack on public freedoms”, according to LFI
According to Aurélien Saintoul, the possible use of facial recognition by law enforcement would constitute “a serious attack on public freedoms. The use of this facial recognition and algorithmic surveillance software contravenes the law, whether GDPR (general data protection regulations), the Data Protection Act and even more recently, the Olympic Games law,” he underlined.
For the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, “I remind you that in our hemicycle, we debated the question of algorithmic video surveillance and that Parliament had explicitly decided to prevent the use of facial recognition”, insisted the deputy for Hauts-de-Seine. Gérald Darmanin announced Monday that he had requested an administrative investigation into the possible use by the Interior Ministry of facial recognition via video surveillance software.
The Minister of the Interior was reacting to the publication of the investigative site Disclose according to which the police would use video surveillance software published by the Israeli company BriefCam, one of whose functions allows facial recognition. “We use BriefCam like other software, but under the authority of a magistrate,” he said on France 5. “But,” he added, “no, to my knowledge, we do not “Let’s not use facial recognition.”
The CNIL, an independent authority that guards the private lives of the French, announced last Wednesday the launch of a “control procedure” targeting the Ministry of the Interior after the publication of the Disclose investigation.