French parliament says oui to AI surveillance for 2024 Paris Olympics Despite the opposition of 38 civil society groups, the French National Assembly has approved the use of algorithmic video surveillance during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Endorsed by French senators in January, the proposed law for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games cleared a committee vote earlier this month. On Thursday, the …
As ever, it'll all depend on exactly what they do with it. If it's used lazily, as a substitute for actual "thinking", there will definitely be problems. If it's used intelligently, well, maybe there'll be some small benefit (at most).
As always, it's how well do these things get set up. There's a fundamental contradiction in the requirements for things like this. First, it mustn't over react when it shouldn't. Second, it must react well enough when it should. There is no happy middle ground, because no one knows where that is. This sort of contradiction has been the bane of all such systems for a long time (including biometric systems, which are also generally making decisions with fuzzily ambiguous data). It takes human intervention to resolve, and if that's biased (ie. "I believe this snake oil"), then you've got judicial enquiries looming on the horizon...
The very insightful observation that "there is no middle ground" reminded me that a similar problem is still not solved after several centuries, namely the problem of law and order enforcement. Any police movie or TV series can be re-framed in terms of the same eternal dilemmas of public security vs. personal freedom, or action vs. inaction, to a degree that obscures the essential question of how and who is to fight against Evil. Humans have not yet solved the problem, so why should an AI-aided solution be better at it?
In addition, the same people that vocally hate surveillance often are the same people that willingly post all their deep and private thoughts in social media (I post, therefore I am).
We have to think very well in advance in order to defend any kind of action based on surveillance. A false positive may lead to a similar disaster as a false negative (also a theme of several movies and TV series...)
"Any police movie or TV series can be re-framed in terms of the same eternal dilemmas of public security vs. personal freedom, or action vs. inaction, to a degree that obscures the essential question of how and who is to fight against Evil."
Pretty much every police / counterterror movie or series I have ever seen explicitly promotes these notions:
- The hero officer is always right
- Because they are always right, they can unrepentently kill, maim and torture their way with nary a warrant in sight
- Torture and death threats always result in the interrogator getting the exact information they need, in a timely fashion for their requirements (only when the hero is the torturer of course. If the hero is the tortured, replace 'always' with 'never')
- Any senior official attempting to restrain their excesses is shown as weak / stupid / pompous / corrupt. Any restraint on the hero is de facto against the forces of good and justice
Then let's act surprised that so many people believe that giving this sort of unfettered powers to the authorities is a good idea!!!
It seems you are not watching enough UK/European/Independent movies/TV series - they are less more prone to the points you raise. I generally agree to the latter, but don't forget that the planet is very different after 9/11. We all should watch the news more and think harder on how to avoid tragedies like the one that happened today in Nashville and whether any kind of surveillance could have predicted it.
If the tea leaves are to be predicted, I indeed wouldn't worry: between this and the vote over retirement, I don't think that this version of France's government will last past the next election cycle (again...). It seems the French change government as often as people change underwear, and this government has already pretty much killed its chances for a solid reelection.
"It's for your own good" = "Let them eat cake", and we know how that went... ;p
Quite often its politicians that want it, and the IOC is dead keen on countries spending vast sums in self-engrandisement projects to boost their TV revenue. It's not an ideal venue for "sports" to actually occur. Some events, one wonders if one is simply looking at the results of various government chemistry labs more than anything else.
Very few countries have got the Olympics "right". Sydney, Australia did - made a profit. London 2012 is probably at least cash-neutral, with fairly well controlled costs. Japan 2020 could have been OK, but got ruined by Covid (they built whole new motorways and moved fish markets in Tokyo to cope with the traffic that never came...). Most other places it's been a big waste of public expenditure.
Wow, that's news to me. I remember that a huge number of people went to Sydney, and they hadn't had much trouble building whatever venues were needed. It was said at the time (probably without being definitive) that it had been profitable. Maybe the cost overrun was balanced by a huge turn out of overseas visitors.
The influence of the IOC is pretty stinky I think. The design of venues gave that away in London. The IOC wants venues to have large amounts of seating so that a large crowd can be got in to make the event appear to be thrilling, boosting the TV audience.
That means that the hosting city's existing swimming pool or whatever doesn't meet the spec so they have to build a new one, which is never going to see a large audience ever again. Waste of money.
What London did was make the seating a temporary addition to a new building, took it down afterwards, leaving the sports facility without all that never to be used again seating. Saved a fair bit of cost, freed up the land for something else.
I wonder what's going on with the Paris Olympics. If they're having to build a new velodrome, that could be tricky. The wood for the track itself comes from only Russia...
I think that eventually, the Olympics will run out of steam. No one will want to host them.
"from only Russia"
What kind of wood do you think only Russia has. Perhaps it's the price of wood rather.
On the topic.
"Modern velodromes are constructed by specialised designers. The Schuermann architects in Germany have built more than 125 tracks worldwide. Most of Schuermann's outdoor tracks are made of wood trusswork with a surface of strips of the rare rain-forest wood Afzelia. Indoor velodromes are built with less expensive pine surfaces."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velodrome
And kudos to El Reg for the lack of typos !
Actually, this is a bit of a political knee jerk reaction at:
1- the Nice terrorist attack where so many were killed or gravely wounded, in the only town in France with so many security cameras. It turned out the droids looking at those never noticed a lorry patrolling in a no-lorry zone, during the previous days. A very clear surveillance failure.
2- the inept ministry of interior in France, Darmanin, as clearly shown in the disaster of the 2022 final of the Europe cup. I wouldn't trust this bozo for any security during any people gathering in Paris.
The issue is Darmanin is inept but Macron doesn't have anything better, so he'll have to do. With some technology help, in order, we all hope, to avoid a disaster !
Not saying it is good, but that's all what Macron can afford. Yes, the king is naked, in the security area as well ...
I really hope that either the CNIL or the Conseil Constitutionnel (Constitutional Council) will oppose this iniquitous law.
Not by decree, the French President doesn't have that power.
After the opposition tabled thousands of amendments to try and make the debate time out, the prime minister used a constitutional clause to adopt the law without a vote. The inevitable consequence was two votes of confidence. Macron gambled on the opposition parties hating each other more than they hate him, which worked, this time.
"After the opposition tabled thousands of amendments to try and make the debate time out, the prime minister used a constitutional clause to adopt the law without a vote. The inevitable consequence was two votes of confidence. Macron gambled on the opposition parties hating each other more than they hate him, which worked, this time."
Actually, the whole timeout concept was triggered by Macron's zealots themselves, in the form of article 47.1 of the constitution, which sets a timeout of the debate.
This, in addition with the votes of confidence was what caused a trouble. It is really hijacking the spirit of law, here ...
"...tabled thousands of amendments to try and make the debate time out, the prime minister used a constitutional clause to adopt the law without a vote"
From the outside looking in, it seems to me that both allowing infinite number of amendments and / or time to discuss them (see also, filibustering), as well as being able to adopt a law without a vote, are abhorrent in any self-respecting democracy
one wonders if M. Macron actually wants to be re-elected. I infer that his victory over Marine Le Pen (~60-40 or thereabouts) was not about the voters liking him but more about disliking Ms. Le Pen (and/or her policies). Perhaps M. Macron misread the results? Or am I missing something?
There is apparently no limit to how long and often a British prime minister can be in charge in Britain.
Is that the same with other European prime ministers, while the presidents have some limit to it, normally.
And I must admit I have never thought about that before. Never too late BoJo and what was her name.
This is his second and last 5-year term.
AFAIK the rules prevent more than two consecutive terms, he could probably try again later.
I doubt if he wants to, though. He'd much rather change things so that the EU president has more executive power, like a US president, and then aim for that role. He seems more like Tony Blair every day.
That's what you're worried about?
No one else has played Plague Inc?
We have Cv19, Monkey Pox, Ebola, and Marburg all active right now and that's just the ones I know about. We have the Silly Soviet with his reference sample of Smallpox plus Novichok and all the rest of the nasties. Not to mention Norovirus.
So let's get millions of people together, I'm sure nothing will go wrong. Everything will be fine...
To watch brain limited morons (have you listened to the post interviews? Or their opinion pieces?) do high school sports and occasionally make political points/get kidnapped.
But hey, let's worry about the privacy we lost on the way....
*Facepalm*
from "Security and Surveillance in the Athens 2004 Olympics: Some Lessons From a Troubled Story"
"[..] the Greek government demanded a more sophisticated, integrated system where television images, vehicle tracking, and other functions were all accessible through a single software platform and viewable from a single set of screens. That meant SAIC had to write new software interfaces for these discrete systems to cooperate with each other. [..[ The problem, according to the wellinformed Athens News, was the central software platform of the C4I system, called the Event Incident Management tool, which was the C4I nervous system. This article reported
that the system is designed to carry pictures, sound, radio signals and access existing electronic databases such
as criminal records. It has to ferry this information between approximately 1,200 users spread
across 116 operational centers that report across to each other like neurons in a brain. (Athens
News, March 5, 2000, p. A07). At the heart of C4I is the Command Decision Support System (CDSS), which comprises
the most crucial software packages and data. CDSS enables users from the police, coast
guard, and fire brigade to file incident reports, keep track of where they have allocated
their manpower, pull up maps, and check whether hospitals are able to receive more
patients, among other things. Also, through a vehicle tracking system, users would know
the location of police cars, fire trucks, and VIP cars, and a network of more than 1,000
cameras would have fed video through the system. According to the contract, this system
would even provide “software applications to enhance decision-making” (Athens News,
March 5, 2000, p. A07). C4I consists of 30 subsystems. [..]"
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249771030_Security_and_Surveillance_in_the_Athens_2004_OlympicsSome_Lessons_From_a_Troubled_Story
int main(enter the void)... The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
