France planning AI-assisted crowd control for 2024 Paris Olympics

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French authorities plan to use an AI-assisted crowd control system to monitor people during the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to a draft law seen by AFP on Thursday.

The system is intended to allow the security services to detect disturbances and potential problems more easily, but will not use facial recognition technology, the bill claimed.

The technology could be particularly useful during the highly open-air opening ceremony with Olympians sailing down the river Seine in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.

The draft law, which was presented to the cabinet on Thursday, proposes other security measures including the use of full-body scanners and increases the sentences for hooliganism.

Organizers and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin have both argued in favor of using so-called "intelligent" security camera software that scans images for dangerous behavior.

According to the draft law, the use of such a system during the Olympics is an "experimentation" but could be applied for future public events which face terrorism-related or crowd control risks.

"No biometric data is used, nor facial recognition technology and it does not enable any link or interconnection or automatic flagging with any other personal data system," the bill claimed.

Rather than opening the games in an athletics stadium as is customary, organizers have planned a ceremony on July 26, 2024, with a flotilla of some 200 boats sailing down the river Seine.

The draft law is expected to be debated in parliament in January where the minority government of French President Emmanuel Macron will need support from opposition groups to pass it.

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