“Algorithmic video surveillance”, fed by AI, is at the origin of a controversy affecting the city of Reims, which has been collaborating since 2021 with the giant Thales to monitor its citizens… without informing them.
From 2021, in Reims, the municipal police began to use a video algorithm which, thanks to artificial intelligence, allows monitoring and analysis of the behavior of Reims people in a city where surveillance cameras are legion. Our colleagues from Street Press reveal the contours of the collaboration between the town hall and Thales Group, which are engaged in large-scale experimentation, all behind the backs of citizens.
Reims, a French benchmark for algorithmic video surveillance?
Reims has adopted Savari, a baby born from Thales Group. But what are we talking about? The French defense giant describes Savari as a solution that uses intelligent video algorithms and deep learning (or “deep learning”, a subfield of AI) for surveillance, supervision and automatic analysis missions of situations. It can be a banal gathering or an intrusion.
It is also used to detect, identify and classify shapes and objects, such as weapons, in just a few moments. This intelligent video surveillance is even capable of cracking down on the road, thanks to a system for reading license plates which allows it in particular to verbalize those who do not pay for their parking.
Savari has therefore seduced the one who has been at the head of the city of kings for almost 10 years, Arnaud Robinet (from the Horizons party). And that’s good, because more than 245 surveillance cameras have been installed in the agglomeration (according to figures communicated in January 2023 by the town hall of Reims), in addition to the 36 already in place. An urban surveillance center was even inaugurated in 2016 within the police station. Twenty operators would work there night and day, 7 days a week. Like Marseille, Toulouse or Nîmes, which have all signed contracts with specialized companies, Reims is experimenting with algorithmic video surveillance.
A legal vagueness from which industrialists and elected officials benefit, to the detriment of citizens
In Reims precisely, the opposition is indignant. ” What shocks me is that it was done in great opacity. It is not normal that citizens are not informed “, plague Léo Tyburce, elected Europe Ecology The Greens. In November 2021, the security assistant Xavier Albertini had more or less reassured the elected officials, then evoking a study with “ a national software company (note: without naming her) who is not facial recognition “, which allows ” recognize any vehicle that is caught in the field of the cameras “.
So, today, how can this collaboration with Thales Group be justified? The increasing number of cameras, and therefore of videos to be analyzed, is mentioned by Mayor Robinet to justify the use of an algorithm. The argument is a hit with professionals in the sector, who judge ” necessary » the use of artificial intelligence to help humans, too few to manage so many cameras and streams. On the side of the opponents, this argument does not hold. ” There’s a huge private market starting up that’s partly publicly funded. “Explains a representative of La Quadrature du Net, who has been calling for the end of video surveillance in France for a long time.
The budget of the town hall of Reims indeed devotes a nice parenthesis of 7 million euros to investments for video surveillance and equipment for the municipal police. A software says help with proofreading was funded, without informing the inhabitants, trapped by the legal vagueness surrounding the deployment of these increasingly precise and versatile “algorithmic video surveillance” tools.
Source : Street Press
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