Parliament passes the Olympic bill and its flagship algorithmic video surveillance project

On Wednesday, April 12, Parliament definitively adopted the bill “relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games [JOP] of 2024” after a final vote in the Senate – 252 votes in favor and 27 against. The text prepared by the government for the 2024 Olympic Games, whose important “protection” component convinces the majority right but on the contrary makes the left opposition fear a security Trojan horse.

After four stages passed without incident (one vote at first reading in the Senate, two in the Assembly and an agreement in the joint committee) this was the last straight line for the text of the executive and its flagship measure, the algorithmic video surveillance. The goal: for algorithms to feed on images from cameras and drones to more quickly identify potentially dangerous “events”, such as the start of a crowd movement or the abandonment of luggage, and report them to the teams. security who scrutinize the gatherings behind their screens.

But the list of “events” to be detected will be fixed later, which does not reassure opponents of the text who wonder what behaviors will be scrutinized.

The fear of generalized surveillance of the population

The experiment, which could begin as soon as the promulgation, and concern, for example, the next Rugby World Cup in the fall of 2023, should theoretically end on March 31, 2025.

The images, which will be analyzed using algorithms from private companies, may be kept for a maximum period of twelve months.

The executive and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, invoke the need to secure the millions of visitors, insist on the safeguards and the absence of facial recognition in the program. But left-wing elected officials, associations such as Amnesty International and La Quadrature du net, or the National Bar Council, are against it.

Some believe that the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) and Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8) will only serve as a showcase for perpetuating these “augmented cameras”and generalize their use to the surveillance of the entire population.

The Senate had adopted the text in first reading with 245 votes for (28 against). And history should repeat itself on Wednesday. The Assembly largely approved it in a final vote on the Lower House side on Tuesday (244 votes to 57). Left-wing deputies have already warned that they would seize the Constitutional Council in the event of the final adoption of the text.

One year after the Stade de France fiasco

Other measures of the bill are already supposed to continue after the Games, such as the extension of the field of “screenings”the conduct of administrative investigations of persons.

The text would come into force about a year after the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France. Endless queues, spectators with blocked tickets while others without tickets climbed the gates, families and supporters targeted by gas shots… French-style policing came out of the sequence humiliated.

The government’s plan provides for the creation of two offences: one punishing illegal entry, in a situation of recidivism, into a sports arena; the other is entering the competition area or field. Environmentalists are particularly concerned that the measure will be used against climate activists.

A stadium ban, mandatory in the event of a serious security breach, would also be created. More consensual measure: the text provides for the creation of a health center in the Olympic village in Saint-Denis, although the opposition regrets that the structure does not survive the Olympics, in a department which lacks caregivers.

The text will also strengthen the anti-doping arsenal of the authorities, with in particular tests intended to detect forms of genetic doping. Finally, it provides for derogations from the rules of Sunday rest, which will run from June 15 to September 30, despite the opposition of the parliamentary left, and support systems for the transport of spectators with disabilities.