Amnesty International Protests Against Paris 2024 AI Surveillance

By: Gyang Dakwo

Amnesty International has staged a symbolic funeral in protest at the French parliament’s approval of the use of artificial intelligence-enhanced surveillance camera systems during the Olympic Games, which are due to start in the last week of July.

Amnesty International is protesting against the approval by the Parliament of the French Republic of the authorisation it gave for the implementation of the use of artificial intelligence for surveillance during the Games, which will take place from 26 July to 11 August in Paris.

The protest took place this Tuesday at the famous Parisian cemetery of Père Lachaise, warning of the dangers of using surveillance cameras equipped with artificial intelligence during this summer’s Olympic Games.

The government has claimed that such technology is necessary to manage crowds of millions of people and detect potential dangers, and that tests of the smart cameras will not process biometric data or use facial recognition.

But critics argue that it paves the way for widespread facial recognition and threatens basic civil liberties. Amnesty has called for legislation in France to ban the use of facial recognition systems in public spaces.

Outside Père Lachaise cemetery, men solemnly carried a coffin marked “privacy” from a hearse to an impromptu roadside funeral parlour filled with mourners dressed in black.

“We do not bury privacy. No to facial recognition,” read a banner over the coffin.

Amnesty International is a global movement of 10 million people in 150 countries working to promote and defend human rights as proclaimed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights treaties and covenants.