The French Parliament has approved a contentious law that will allow the use of artificial intelligence (AI) video monitoring for security purposes at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris.
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The French Parliament has approved a contentious law that will allow the use of artificial intelligence (AI) video monitoring for security purposes at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris. The law was approved by the Senate, National Assembly, and cross-party Committee with a majority of 252-27 in favor. The legislation paves the way for the men’s Rugby World Cup, scheduled for September 2023, to serve as an experimentation ground for AI technology. The technology can be used at sporting and cultural events as part of attempts to improve security during the testing period, which runs until March 31, 2025.
The new law seeks to enhance fines for entering athletic arenas or competition fields, prevent and punish violence at events with stadium bans, detect major hazards more rapidly by analyzing photos using algorithms, and prevent and punish individuals who enter these areas. It also provides for the establishment of a health center at the Athletes’ Village, as well as advanced DNA analysis procedures to detect doping in accordance with international anti-doping standards. The legislation has generated controversy, however, with organizations like Amnesty International charging that the technology “sets a dangerous precedent for human rights,” warning that it may violate privacy rights, and saying that it might result in a “massive assault on the right to privacy.”
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French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, on the other hand, has applauded the bill’s passage, hailing it as a key step towards the successful organization of Paris Olympics. She praised the changes made to the law, including better protections for the use of millimeter wave scanners and algorithmic image processing to guarantee the proportionality of actions taken to prevent disorder and violence in stadiums. The rule will also require nominative, dematerialized, and tamper-proof ticketing for specific sporting events that are vulnerable to fraud, as well as greater consideration for concerns such as accessibility of sites and transportation, as well as assistance for individuals with impairments.
The Constitutional Council will review the law when it is enacted before it is swiftly put into action to make sure its provisions can successfully aid in the planning and faultless execution of the 2024 Paris Games. AI has long been used in security measures for sporting events. Facial recognition technology was already in use at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when it was used to identify participants and keep an eye out for any questionable activity.
The implementation of AI video surveillance for the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris in 2024, however, signals an important advancement in the technology’s application for security. The adoption of AI technology has sparked questions about how it might impact privacy rights, even while it promises to improve security for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The French government will need to make sure that the proper security measures are in place to stop any potential technology abuse and protect individual privacy.
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