New law proposed in France would widen the use of ‘smart’ CCTV cameras

A senator proposed on 12 May a bill to expand the use of ‘smart’ cameras enhanced with artificial intelligence.

The bill, currently under debate, was proposed by Pierre-Jean Verzelen, a French senator and a member of The Republican party, and aims to use these cameras to detect emergency situations quickly so that emergency services can respond more rapidly.

Additionally, the surveillance cameras, which use AI algorithms to detect anomalies, can also be used in police investigations.

“If someone has a medical emergency in the street, if someone pulls out a weapon, if someone uses a crane at the foot of the Louvre on a Sunday morning — basically, if the camera detects there is a problem, it will alert security services so they can intervene as quickly as possible,” Mr Verzelen said in a recent interview with TF1. 

Mr Verzelen pushed for wider adoption after seeing the experimental use of the cameras deployed during the Paris Olympics. He also highlighted the advantages their deployment could bring, arguing that France should not fall behind in the development of such technologies.

When installed at height, the cameras can also be useful in detecting fires, and in broader applications, in detecting incidents such as theft, abandoned luggage, and illegal dumping.

However, it should be noted that the technology remains largely experimental and is still subject to strict legal limitations in France. 

At present, its deployment is only permitted on a trial basis under tightly regulated conditions. A legal expert also warned that such video surveillance could become overly intrusive and would therefore need to be strictly regulated. 

“Individuals might be less inclined, for example, to go out and protest, to go into public spaces, to express themselves, because they know they are being monitored,” explained Yoann Nabat to TF1, co-founder of the Observatoire de la surveillance en démocratie (a group that monitors surveillance and privacy issues).

It is important to note though that the algorithmic cameras do not include facial recognition or biometric identification, cannot automatically identify individuals, and can only generate alerts about predefined events, with human authorities remaining in control of any response. 

The National Assembly had already approved a bill in February authorising these cameras to be used on a trial basis in supermarkets and retail stores to identify shoplifting until 2027.

Even back then though, the approval was not without opposition. Hervé Saulignac, a French senator representing the Socialist Party, found this to be a ‘worrying trend’. “We are being overtaken by technology, which is moving faster than the legislation,” he said.

If adopted, the new measures would require authorisation from the state representative in each department, which would likely apply broadly as a large majority of mayors are said to be in favour of such technologies. 

Deployment would still need to be justified as necessary and proportionate, and formally approved by the prefect. In fact, Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes, has previously experimented with surveillance systems using video analytics, but the Council of State later ruled against such practices.