If the government has not provided for facial recognition in its bill on the 2024 Olympics, amendments from parliamentarians are trying to add it.
Officially, there are no plans to include facial recognition for security purposes during the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. The government has committed to this and the bill does not contain such a provision ( a behavioral analysis of the crowd is planned via algorithms to detect atypical situations, however). But that lead could very well come back out the window.
The risk of an amendment
This is the fear expressed by Marie-Laure Denis, the president of the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil). She took advantage of her passage on France News on January 24 to call on parliamentarians to follow the path traced by the executive, refraining from tabling amendments introducing facial recognition in France, even for the Olympics.
” The members of the Cnil college call on parliamentarians not to introduce facial recognition, that is to say the identification of people on the fly in public space. The public space is a place where many public freedoms, freedom of demonstration, worship and others are exercised. “said Marie-Laure Denis.
The personal data protection authority has reason to be wary of what can happen in the National Assembly and the Senate. Nothing prevents an elected official from trying to slip an amendment to the government’s bill, whether in committee or in plenary session, to request the establishment of such a system in France. And besides, it has already happened.
In the Senate Law Committee, Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, member of the Republicans, co-signed an amendment supported by other members of his political party to implement biometric data processing “ for the purposes of controlling access to public reception areas and means of transport. »
The provision was however dismissed during the debates, but nothing says that elected officials will not return to the charge. Another amendment can come back “, thus warned the president of the Cnil. And by the way, ” there is another one that was resubmitted during the public session “. And even if the Senate does not introduce the said measure, the National Assembly remains.
