Around 40 MEPs from the S&D, Greens/EFA, Renew Europe, The Left and ECR groups sent a letter to the French Parliament on Friday 17 March, calling on it to stop plans to authorise the surveillance of citizens using artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, the year Paris will host the Olympic Games.
“These suspicion machines falsely denounce countless citizens, are discriminatory, teach conformity, and do absolutely nothing to catch criminals, as studies and experiments prove. Little by little, as in China, social diversity is threatened and our open society is replaced by a conformist consumer society”, commented Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, German).
The seventh article of the ‘2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ bill proposes to experiment with algorithmic video surveillance, with the aim of automatically signalling supposedly ‘abnormal or ‘suspicious’ behaviour.
The letter comes as Members of Parliament are currently finalising their position on the Artificial Intelligence legislation (see EUROPE 13129/15), which includes a ban on mass biometric surveillance.
“While MEPs in Brussels are currently fighting for a ban on mass biometric surveillance of public spaces, the French Parliament is threatening to bring it into Europe for the first time” Breyer added.
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/5vw (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)