the National Assembly adopts in first reading the “Olympic Games” bill and its security component

It’s done. The National Assembly largely adopted, Tuesday, March 28, the bill “Olympic and Paralympic Games”. This text includes a large security component to prepare and protect the high mass of world sport which will take place in France from July 26, 2024.

>> Before Paris 2024, how mass surveillance became an Olympic discipline.

Already comfortably validated in the Senate, the bill was approved by 400 votes against 93, despite the concern of part of the opposition which considers it a Trojan horse to strengthen and perpetuate beyond the Tool Games surveillance of the population, like algorithmic video surveillance.

An experiment in so-called “intelligent” video surveillance

The most controversial article, on so-called “intelligent” video surveillance, opens the way to an experiment that would combine images taken by cameras and drones, and algorithms. The experiment will concern large-scale “sporting, recreational or cultural events”. It must end on December 31, 2024 but could begin as soon as the law is promulgated, and concern for example the next Rugby World Cup in September-October.

The presidential majority and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin insisted on the safeguards and defended the process: analyzing the images to automatically detect potentially risky acts or gestures, and report them to agents behind a wall of screens so that they can send colleagues to check on the situation or intervene. But the list of “events” and behaviors to be detected will be fixed by decree. To the chagrin of the deputies of the left alliance Nupes, who are worried about what will be retained.