The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region votes for the deployment of VSA in stations and high schools

2024-03-27 11:03:29

An article from our stephanois comrades from Hâlte to digital control

He dreamed of it, he did it. An article from Reporterre tells us that Laurent Wauquiez had the Regional Council vote on Thursday, March 21, for the deployment of algorithmic video surveillance in all high schools and trains in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, taking advantage of the experimentation granted to the Paris Olympic Games.

Currently 129 stations are monitored by 2,300 cameras, the images of which are viewed in real time at the CRST. 285 high schools, 750 coaches and all railway trains would also be equipped.

Journal of the Auvergne-Rhones Alpes region–Montage

According to the deliberation voted by the Regional Council, the equipment of these cameras with automated video surveillance will be able to detect eight types of predetermined events : “failure to respect the direction of traffic, crossing a prohibited zone, the presence or use of a weapon, the start of a fire, a crowd movement, a person on the ground, excessive density, abandoned package. ». The events will then be verified by an agent, who will decide what action to take.

The regional executive promises to use this algorithmic video surveillance “without implementing facial recognition or biometric data identification [qui permettent d’identifier une personne]. » However, as demonstrated very well by Quadrature du Net, VSA necessarily involves biometric identification.

VSA and facial recognition are based on the same image analysis algorithms, the only difference is that the first isolates and recognizes corpsmovements or objects, when the second detects a visage.

The VSA is capable of being interested in “events” (rapid movements, altercations, prolonged immobility) or in the distinctive features of people: a silhouette, clothing, gait, thanks to which they can isolate a person in a crowd and follow them throughout their movement throughout the city. The VSA therefore continuously identifies and analyzes biometric data.

“In reality, the algorithm identifies actions that can be linked to their author” (Marne Strazielle, communications director of La Quadrature du net.)

These are generally the same companies who are developing these two technologies. For example, the French start-up Two-I first launched into emotion detection, wanted to test it in Nice trams, before experimenting with facial recognition on football fans in Metz. Finally, the company seems to focus on VSA and sell it to several municipalities in France. VSA is an inherently dangerous biometric technology; accepting it opens the way to the worst surveillance tools.“JO law: let’s refuse biometric surveillance”Squaring the Net

Mr. Wauquiez has been planning for a long time to massively equip school and inter-urban buses, stations and TER trains in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with cameras and to connect everything to facial recognition.

In June 2023, we had already released an article on the subject, at the time of the signing of an agreement between the Auvergne Rhône Alpes region, the prefect and the SNCF, authorizing the transfer to the security forces of images from video surveillance cameras at 129 stations out of the approximately 350 in the AURA region.

Since the end of 2023, he also asks for the experimental use of “facial recognition software” around high schools to be able to identify people “followed for terrorist radicalization”.

A measure which has already been recognized as illegal by the courts, as recalled by the media Reporterre. In 2019 a project to install facial recognition gates at the entrance to high schools in Nice and Marseille had been contested by Quadrature of the net and the LDH. The National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL), who had already made recommendationsissued an opinion at the time which judged the device not necessary and disproportionate.

But that will not stop Laurent Wauquiez, he declared that he was going to ask the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, for permission to extend the law to cover high schools and regional transport…

The CNIL, which was not consulted by Laurent Wauquiez’s team, reminded Reporterre of its position of principle, which “considers that the implementation of augmented cameras frequently leads to limiting the rights of the people filmed”.

For her, “the deployment of these devices in public spaces, where many individual freedoms are exercised (freedom to come and go, of expression, of assembly, right to demonstrate, freedom of worship, etc.), undoubtedly presents risks for the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals and the preservation of their anonymity.”

Dozens of organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have sent a public letter to MPs, alerting them to the fact that the new provisions create a worrying precedent of unjustified and disproportionate surveillance in public spacesand threaten fundamental rights, such as the right to privacy, freedom of assembly and association, and the right to non-discrimination.

Let’s resist the VSA and the technopolice!