Security manufacturers were teeming with ideas to better secure the Paris Olympic Games in the summer of 2024. A little too much, in fact, in the eyes of their detractors.
A picture is worth a thousand words, the saying goes. At the end of May, Amnesty International symbolically buried our private lives at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. A way for the non-governmental organization to warn of the dangers of facial recognition.
This technology promises us, she warns, “ a dystopian future ». An adjective which refers to this literary genre featuring dark dystopias in which freedoms have disappeared. Like Amnesty International, many associations are concerned about a techno-security craze during the Paris Olympic Games, which will begin on July 26, 2024.
This drift seems intrinsic to the modern Games. For companies, the largest sporting event in the world is indeed a great showcase to present their security products and services. However, security manufacturers claim, on the contrary, that they did not celebrate with these Games. Their representatives from the group of French land and air defense and security industries (Gicat) believed that the public authorities had remained too stingy in terms of orders, despite a campaign of experiments. So many innovative devices which could, for their designers, have improved the safety of event participants. But which are also considered, by their detractors, as dystopian technologies.
Facial recognition
In this debate, the first technology whose absence should be noted during the Olympic Games is facial recognition. The idea was in fact dismissed very quickly, in the fall of 2022 in favor of algorithmic video surveillance (VSA) limited to eight use cases. But facial recognition is so worrying that it still remains omnipresent in public debate.
“The legalization of the VSA is a further step towards its use”believes Amnesty International, which is campaigning for a law “total ban”. This type of tool would allow, assures the NGO, mass surveillance reducing “negating the right to privacy”hindering ” freedom of speech “ and can accentuate “severely discrimination”.
Biometrics and barcodes
Well ahead of the Olympic Games, the National Research Agency had also launched a call for projects from researchers. His goal ? Test innovative solutions around alerting populations, managing crowd movements, controlling and monitoring routes or reserved areas.
Six projects were selected and supported with a grant of 2.8 million euros, including one around facial recognition. Coordinated by the company ID3 Technologies, the EASIMoB project aimed to develop an identification system combining biometrics and barcodes for athletes and accredited individuals. After a check at the entrance to the sites, the researchers imagined a device for detecting intruders using video surveillance capable of creating “biometric templates on the fly”.
But that wasn’t the most complicated point of the project. THE “major technical challenges” were related to the reading of a high density barcode and the definition of “robust cryptographic mechanisms allowing the manipulation of biometric templates without compromising data confidentiality”. As specified by the specialized press agency AEF, the solution was ultimately not put into production. But the manufacturer now hopes to be able to deploy it in the industrial sector.
An aerial balloon
In addition to facial recognition, which was ultimately ruled out, many security technologies have been tested. The Hemeria Airship company has, for example, worked on an aerial balloon, called “Eagle Owl”. This airborne surveillance system has two types of cameras. First of all, an optronic ball, supposed to be able to detect and track targets, and then sensors allowing real-time perimeter vision of an area.
But it can also be equipped with sensors for electromagnetic intelligence – in short, communication interceptions. If it had been deployed during the Games, the machine, which can remain in the air for seven successive days, would undoubtedly have caused a stir. Its dimensions are indeed impressive: 19 meters long and 7 wide, reported L’Est République. “But a balloon is simply a carrying platform”recalls Nicolas Multan, the company’s general director. “It’s not so much the vector as the information we get from it” which must be taken into consideration, he adds.
The high-tech scanner
The scanner from the company MC2 Technologies could have stripped you naked, but without undressing you. Sold mainly in China, it remained at the door of the Paris Olympic Games. According to the northern company, its MM-Imager solution is capable of detecting weapons, powders and even ceramic objects in real time. All without emitting waves: the device is a passive system, equipped with sensors capable of operating on millimeter waves.
The main strength of the scanner, which is based on biomedical technology, is its ability to monitor moving people. A way to avoid tedious queues, provided that there are not too many false alarms. This project had sprouted in the heads of its designers after a long wait of several hours at the Lyon-Part-Dieu station following an abandoned package, the president of the company reported to the Republik-event site.
The drone carrier
The company Marine Tech had finally proposed to the Ministry of the Interior to test the RSV ScanDrone, its marine surveillance drone. The latter could have been put into action in the Marseille marina or around the Teahupo’o wave. This Var company had already caught the eye of the Defense Innovation Agency with its Manta drone, a white rectangle in the shape of a line equipped with a large antenna. The RSV ScanDrone has a more classic shape of an inflatable boat.
But in fact, it is a kind of machine carrier capable of carrying an underwater drone and another aerial one. Concretely, the platform, already used to protect the port of Toulon, for example, can be used to monitor a body of water or to detect and identify a suspicious object at the bottom of the sea. According to its designers, it is much less expensive than a surveillance boat, and more discreet. So, dystopian technology or welcome? It’s up to you to judge, for example, by watching this video.
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