Soon facial recognition in the streets of Annecy ?
An experiment of facial recognition in trains and stations will be implemented in the region, in addition to the video surveillance present in Annecy. Have we reached a limit ?
Japan and China: the strategy of the ultrasecurity
For the Olympic Games of Tokyo which began on July 23, security will be strengthened to a level rarely reached. For the first time at such an event, the 300,000 athletes, staff, journalists and volunteers will be subjected to a facial recognition system designed by the firm NEC. Electronic chips will be integrated into the badges of accredited persons. The technology will be present at the entrance of the forty sites of the competition.
The organizers will be able to collect a large database of photos.
In China, the new technologies of tracing are very used officially to fight against the coronavirus with the generalization of mobile applications that allow to follow the movements. On July 13, the authorities acknowledged that they had set up facial recognition cameras in the Chinese city of Ruili on the border with Burma. With this device, people who leave a neighborhood, a supermarket or a specific area have their face scanned by a camera.
This data is associated with a unique QR code that allows the monitoring of a person’s movements and the identification of the person’s face take your temperature to fight against the spread of the Covid-19.
Experimentation of facial recognition in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region
During its session of July 19th, the regional council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes has adopted a deliberation that authorizes the experimentation of easy recognition in trains and stations. The station of Annecy could be concerned. This device will accompany the work of the police and gendarmerie and will be accessible only to the competent authorities.
It will allow a posteriori to follow the path of delinquents or criminals to arrest them and it should help to prevent crimes and offenses.
The reactions were numerous in the regional assembly to denounce a serious attack on freedoms, this technology is widely used in Russia and China to monitor public space. The elected representatives of the opposition have warned against “a terrifying tool for citizen control“. Martin Drago, a lawyer at the Quadrature du net, believes that it is “the generalized and constant identity control, and thus the end of anonymity in the public space;.
The president of the region Laurent Wauquiez who had campaigned on the security theme assumed on Twitter that: “Protecting our high school students, our children on buses, train users, is our responsibility. Facial recognition, a posteriori, will make it possible to identify criminals and arrest them“.
Annecy: a city under video surveillance
The Gazette de Communes published in 2020 the ranking of French cities with more than 90,000 inhabitants that have the most video surveillance cameras on the public highway. Result: Annecy is in fourth place with 273 cameras in total.
This represents a camera for 460 inhabitants. The prefecture of Haute-Savoie knows the strongest progression of this equipment with an increase of 493% between 2013 and 2019. The first three places in France are occupied by Nice, Nîmes and Mulhouse.
Video surveillance camera
The video surveillance cameras in Annecy are installed to monitor the public space, especially in case of traffic or road problems, fire risk (in the Courier tunnel), crime prevention (theft, vandalism) and the location of individuals who have committed a criminal act. The staff who view these images 24 hours a day, 7 days a week are authorized to. The processing of images can be requisitioned by the National Police or the Gendarmerie. The images are kept for a few days before being erased.
Some cameras work at 360° and are equipped with light amplification devices during the night.