At the forefront since 2001 on the theme of urban cameras, ranking on
the podium of the most video-monitored cities in the country, Nîmes
inaugurated, on November 13, 2023, its "hypervisor". ---- With this
state-of-the-art tool, on which around fifty people work night and day,
the city is taking a big step further towards the "connected city", a
rapidly developing trend for community management. ---- At any time, the
agents stationed in this hypervisor can easily spot, based on very high
quality images, inconvenient parking, a vehicle driving too fast, a wild
dump, strange behavior... This place concentrates all the information
related to the management of public space (security, traffic, parking,
environment, etc.), allows you to manage public lighting in a
neighborhood with a simple click, to issue a fine remotely (their number
increased by 23% in one year with video reporting) or to spot an
intrusion in one of the 375 connected municipal buildings.
The collection and circulation of data in real time are at the heart of
the program. The system is based on cameras equipped, and this is the
new thing, with artificial intelligence software whose algorithms
provide new information. Because it is no longer just a matter of
filming and monitoring, but of managing the city in real time.
When it comes to software, the City of Nîmes, as well as other cities,
work with Inéo, a French company specializing in the field of smart
cities. As for the municipal police center, it is equipped with Syndex
automated surveillance software, and high-performance video surveillance
image analysis software, Briefcam. This latest software, increasingly
widespread in French communities, was developed by an Israeli company
bought by the Japanese Canon, in 2018. It is above all at the heart of
legal actions brought by unions, associations and groups who criticize
it, in particular, for allowing facial recognition of any individual by
activating a specific functionality.
Nice, Angers, Lyon, Deauville, Orléans... Video-managed cities of all
sizes are multiplying, and with them the ethical questions concerning
the use, for the moment quite vague, of personal data and individual
surveillance, even if few citizens seem to take hold of it.
These digital cameras are capable of 360 degrees, filming and zooming
(some are called "augmented" in the sense that they do not just film but
analyze, that is to say, make people talk images).
Currently, legally, these augmented cameras can only analyze objects
(trucks, cars, bicycles) for statistical purposes. "Those capable of
analyzing individual behavior cannot be deployed," assures the director
of the CNIL. But it's a question of time...
In Nîmes, the development of this "mass surveillance" worries the Human
Rights League (LDH), the only local association to have raised the
question of the use of personal data during the municipal campaign, and
which , still today, questions himself.
Source: lemonde.fr
For having monitored its employees too closely, Amazon France Logistique
(AFL) was sentenced by the National Commission for Information
Technology and Liberties (Cnil) to a fine of more than 32 million euros,
or 3% of the company turnover which amounted to more than 1.135 billion
euros in 2021.
The decision taken on December 27 was made public on January 23, after
more than four years of investigation and legal analysis. The control
missions were carried out at the end of 2019. AFL then had 6,200
employees on permanent contracts and employed 21,582 temporary workers
over the year. It was following several complaints from employees and
press articles that the commission decided to take up the subject.
The CNIL indicates that although there have been precedents, this fine
is unprecedented in its scale and is justified, among other things, by
"the permanent computer surveillance induced by the processing in
question and the pressure that results from it for employees and
temporary workers" as well as "the large number of people concerned".
For comparison, Ikea France was only fined one million euros in 2021 by
the Versailles court for having put in place an increased surveillance
system for its employees, and in particular union members. es, between
2009 and 2012. The prosecution had nevertheless requested a sentence
twice as heavy.
Every day, in all the large warehouses of the Amazon group in France,
the choreography is the same: each employee, equipped with a scanner,
provides information in real time on each of the tasks entrusted to
them, from picking items from the shelves to packaging. These scanners
record the rate at which packages are processed, measure the speed at
which items are put away and time each interruption of activity, among
other things... All this in an incessant ballet of digital signals,
sounds and lights that indicate to employees: es every move to make.
For David Gaborieau, sociologist of work and researcher at the Center
for the Study of Employment and Work, the surveillance of employees is
only the logical continuation of the organization of work as it is
thought of in the field of logistics: "In daily work in warehouses, what
is most disturbing for an employee is that all their actions are
completely supervised. The way we work is entirely dictated by machines,
software packages, and we have very little room for maneuver. The
arduousness of work without autonomy is very significant and the stress
of supervision only adds to this arduousness.»
For the CNIL, recording data not only makes it possible to better
organize warehouse activity, but also to monitor each employee
individually. Furthermore, the commission considers it "excessive" to
keep this data for more than 31 days.
These scanners make it possible to collect a large number of indicators,
three of which have been deemed illegal:
The "Stow Machine Gun" indicator signals when an employee has scanned an
item too quickly, i.e. less than 1.25 seconds after scanning the
previous one.
The "Idle Time" indicator indicates when an employee has not scanned
anything for ten minutes or more.
The "Latency time less than ten minutes" indicator indicates when an
employee has not scanned anything for one to ten minutes. To be
continued because Amazon should appeal.
Source: Médiapart.fr
On May 17, 2023, the Constitutional Council validated the legislative
framework allowing the police to use algorithmic video surveillance
(VSA) in real time, after several months of legislative battle in the
midst of the retirement movement. Then, as a logical consequence, a call
for tenders was published in the summer to launch competition between
the numerous companies which have flourished in recent years in the
sector. This public contract, accompanied by technical clauses,
describes the requirements to which companies offering their services
must comply and, first of all, the famous "suspicious" situations and
behaviors that the software must identify in order to trigger an alert.
In fact, the law had been passed blindly without them being defined,
they were then formalized by a decree of August 28, 2023. This decree
lists suspicious situations and behaviors: presence of abandoned
objects; presence or use of weapons; non-compliance by a person or
vehicle with the common direction of traffic; crossing or presence of a
person or vehicle in a prohibited or sensitive area; presence of a
person on the ground following a fall; crowd movement; too high a
density of people; fires starting. Nothing extraordinary, just banal.
The State is careful not to identify people via the color of their
clothing or facial recognition. We are not there yet... After several
months of tests and simulations, this contract was awarded at the
beginning of January. It was naturally awarded to companies that have
been well established for several years in this type of market and
maintaining good relations with the State. These companies will thus be
able to make their algorithms available, well beyond just the Olympic
Games since this experiment concerns any "recreational, sporting and
cultural event", until March 31, 2025, well after the end of the Olympic
Games. It will subsequently be subject to an "evaluation". But we must
not be fooled, this "experiment" during the Olympic Games must be seen
as a simple step towards the legitimization and perpetuation of these
technologies. Past examples show us that security projects supposed to
be temporary are systematically extended, such as the black boxes of the
Intelligence law or the exceptional provisions of the state of emergency.
Source: la quadrature.net
In Senegal, an uprising is underway against authoritarian President
Macky Sall who has decided to "postpone" the elections scheduled for
February 25 (see CA 336). To date, hundreds of people have been
arrested, several injured by bullets and at least three protesters
killed. Most of the ammunition used is made in France. In the images
circulating in recent days, we can clearly see the use of "Cougar"
launchers used to throw grenades at demonstrators. We also see hand
grenades thrown by the police. These munitions and launchers are
manufactured by the company Alsetex, whose factory is based in Sarthe.
Explosive grenades were also used, the same models as those which
mutilated Sainte-Soline and elsewhere.
France is one of the world's leading arms exporters. Not only military
weapons, but also law enforcement weapons. 1 year ago, in February 2023,
the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced the sale of
military equipment to Senegal during a visit to Dakar, as part of an
African tour...
Source: Contre-attack.net
As of January 1, 2024, 75,897 people were surviving in prison, an
increase of 3,724 prisoners in 2023.
The International Prison Observatory (OIP) has published an
investigative report on the disciplinary machine that reigns in prisons.
This investigative work was carried out between October 2022 and
December 2023.
"In prison, the list of offenses punishable by disciplinary sanctions is
potentially infinite" underlines the OIP. A detainee may be punished for
"dress deemed inappropriate, a blocked eyepiece, a radio that refuses to
turn down the volume". It is the regime of arbitrariness which is
established there. If the prisoners cannot know precisely the offenses
that they can be accused of, anything becomes permissible for the
guards, who can assert their authority outside of all legality, for
reasons of personal revenge in particular.
The few legislative advances in terms of monitoring prison decisions are
far from enough. The written reports required on the facts giving rise
to a sanction in no way guarantee fair treatment of the disciplinary
procedure, since they remain cloistered behind prison walls. The right
to the assistance of a lawyer established since 2000 is rarely used and,
despite the obligation to provide the file at least 24 hours before the
disciplinary committee, it is extremely common for lawyers to only be
able to consult it. 'One hour before. Regardless of the laws that govern
this procedure, the fact remains that the prison administration finds
itself both judge and party where the head of the establishment has a
predominant place in the disciplinary committee. Even if it is not a
criminal trial, the disciplinary committee implements sanctions, which
in the majority of cases lead to the disciplinary unit, notes the OIP
investigation.
Placement in a disciplinary unit can last up to 30 days. These are cells
similar to those in police custody, therefore placing the prisoners in
conditions of incredible violence: there is total isolation, but also
very often the absence of hygiene, "windows revealing barely passing the
light", a daily one-hour outing in a "walking yard" which is nothing
other than another closed room, "not to mention the numerous cases of
violence and bullying by supervisors -es penitentiaries"... The prisoner
violates human dignity, it is a question of degrading and violent
treatment. It is a place where the violence of guards is carried out
with complete impunity, far from view.
"A fault can lead, in addition to the sanction decided by the
disciplinary committee, to cascading consequences on daily prison life -
for example in terms of work activity or detention regime - but also on
the course of execution of the sentence - in particular through the
decisions of the sentencing courts to grant or not furloughs, sentence
adjustments or sentence reductions" explains the OIP.
It is absolutely urgent to lift the silence on the unworthy conditions
in which prisoners survive and it is time to put an end to these places
of confinement and torture.
Sources: oip.org and Contre-attack.net
More than 13 years after the events, France was condemned by the
European Court of Human Rights for a police trap where for several hours
the cops surrounded hundreds of people, including minors, on Place
Bellecour in Lyon who demonstrated against the pension reform of that
time. In 2010, this police practice of encirclement was illegal, hence
the conviction. But in December 2021, a new national law enforcement
plan (SNMO) was voted on. It now legalizes this justified technique in
order to "avoid the use of law enforcement techniques that could present
greater risks of harm to people"! This technique "must, as soon as
circumstances permit, systematically provide a controlled exit point"
and must only be implemented "for a strictly necessary and proportionate
period", stipulates the document. The possibility offered to
demonstrators to leave the encirclement zone "must constantly be
reassessed with discernment.» Usual blah blah!
Sources: le monde.fr and SNMO
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4116
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
the podium of the most video-monitored cities in the country, Nîmes
inaugurated, on November 13, 2023, its "hypervisor". ---- With this
state-of-the-art tool, on which around fifty people work night and day,
the city is taking a big step further towards the "connected city", a
rapidly developing trend for community management. ---- At any time, the
agents stationed in this hypervisor can easily spot, based on very high
quality images, inconvenient parking, a vehicle driving too fast, a wild
dump, strange behavior... This place concentrates all the information
related to the management of public space (security, traffic, parking,
environment, etc.), allows you to manage public lighting in a
neighborhood with a simple click, to issue a fine remotely (their number
increased by 23% in one year with video reporting) or to spot an
intrusion in one of the 375 connected municipal buildings.
The collection and circulation of data in real time are at the heart of
the program. The system is based on cameras equipped, and this is the
new thing, with artificial intelligence software whose algorithms
provide new information. Because it is no longer just a matter of
filming and monitoring, but of managing the city in real time.
When it comes to software, the City of Nîmes, as well as other cities,
work with Inéo, a French company specializing in the field of smart
cities. As for the municipal police center, it is equipped with Syndex
automated surveillance software, and high-performance video surveillance
image analysis software, Briefcam. This latest software, increasingly
widespread in French communities, was developed by an Israeli company
bought by the Japanese Canon, in 2018. It is above all at the heart of
legal actions brought by unions, associations and groups who criticize
it, in particular, for allowing facial recognition of any individual by
activating a specific functionality.
Nice, Angers, Lyon, Deauville, Orléans... Video-managed cities of all
sizes are multiplying, and with them the ethical questions concerning
the use, for the moment quite vague, of personal data and individual
surveillance, even if few citizens seem to take hold of it.
These digital cameras are capable of 360 degrees, filming and zooming
(some are called "augmented" in the sense that they do not just film but
analyze, that is to say, make people talk images).
Currently, legally, these augmented cameras can only analyze objects
(trucks, cars, bicycles) for statistical purposes. "Those capable of
analyzing individual behavior cannot be deployed," assures the director
of the CNIL. But it's a question of time...
In Nîmes, the development of this "mass surveillance" worries the Human
Rights League (LDH), the only local association to have raised the
question of the use of personal data during the municipal campaign, and
which , still today, questions himself.
Source: lemonde.fr
For having monitored its employees too closely, Amazon France Logistique
(AFL) was sentenced by the National Commission for Information
Technology and Liberties (Cnil) to a fine of more than 32 million euros,
or 3% of the company turnover which amounted to more than 1.135 billion
euros in 2021.
The decision taken on December 27 was made public on January 23, after
more than four years of investigation and legal analysis. The control
missions were carried out at the end of 2019. AFL then had 6,200
employees on permanent contracts and employed 21,582 temporary workers
over the year. It was following several complaints from employees and
press articles that the commission decided to take up the subject.
The CNIL indicates that although there have been precedents, this fine
is unprecedented in its scale and is justified, among other things, by
"the permanent computer surveillance induced by the processing in
question and the pressure that results from it for employees and
temporary workers" as well as "the large number of people concerned".
For comparison, Ikea France was only fined one million euros in 2021 by
the Versailles court for having put in place an increased surveillance
system for its employees, and in particular union members. es, between
2009 and 2012. The prosecution had nevertheless requested a sentence
twice as heavy.
Every day, in all the large warehouses of the Amazon group in France,
the choreography is the same: each employee, equipped with a scanner,
provides information in real time on each of the tasks entrusted to
them, from picking items from the shelves to packaging. These scanners
record the rate at which packages are processed, measure the speed at
which items are put away and time each interruption of activity, among
other things... All this in an incessant ballet of digital signals,
sounds and lights that indicate to employees: es every move to make.
For David Gaborieau, sociologist of work and researcher at the Center
for the Study of Employment and Work, the surveillance of employees is
only the logical continuation of the organization of work as it is
thought of in the field of logistics: "In daily work in warehouses, what
is most disturbing for an employee is that all their actions are
completely supervised. The way we work is entirely dictated by machines,
software packages, and we have very little room for maneuver. The
arduousness of work without autonomy is very significant and the stress
of supervision only adds to this arduousness.»
For the CNIL, recording data not only makes it possible to better
organize warehouse activity, but also to monitor each employee
individually. Furthermore, the commission considers it "excessive" to
keep this data for more than 31 days.
These scanners make it possible to collect a large number of indicators,
three of which have been deemed illegal:
The "Stow Machine Gun" indicator signals when an employee has scanned an
item too quickly, i.e. less than 1.25 seconds after scanning the
previous one.
The "Idle Time" indicator indicates when an employee has not scanned
anything for ten minutes or more.
The "Latency time less than ten minutes" indicator indicates when an
employee has not scanned anything for one to ten minutes. To be
continued because Amazon should appeal.
Source: Médiapart.fr
On May 17, 2023, the Constitutional Council validated the legislative
framework allowing the police to use algorithmic video surveillance
(VSA) in real time, after several months of legislative battle in the
midst of the retirement movement. Then, as a logical consequence, a call
for tenders was published in the summer to launch competition between
the numerous companies which have flourished in recent years in the
sector. This public contract, accompanied by technical clauses,
describes the requirements to which companies offering their services
must comply and, first of all, the famous "suspicious" situations and
behaviors that the software must identify in order to trigger an alert.
In fact, the law had been passed blindly without them being defined,
they were then formalized by a decree of August 28, 2023. This decree
lists suspicious situations and behaviors: presence of abandoned
objects; presence or use of weapons; non-compliance by a person or
vehicle with the common direction of traffic; crossing or presence of a
person or vehicle in a prohibited or sensitive area; presence of a
person on the ground following a fall; crowd movement; too high a
density of people; fires starting. Nothing extraordinary, just banal.
The State is careful not to identify people via the color of their
clothing or facial recognition. We are not there yet... After several
months of tests and simulations, this contract was awarded at the
beginning of January. It was naturally awarded to companies that have
been well established for several years in this type of market and
maintaining good relations with the State. These companies will thus be
able to make their algorithms available, well beyond just the Olympic
Games since this experiment concerns any "recreational, sporting and
cultural event", until March 31, 2025, well after the end of the Olympic
Games. It will subsequently be subject to an "evaluation". But we must
not be fooled, this "experiment" during the Olympic Games must be seen
as a simple step towards the legitimization and perpetuation of these
technologies. Past examples show us that security projects supposed to
be temporary are systematically extended, such as the black boxes of the
Intelligence law or the exceptional provisions of the state of emergency.
Source: la quadrature.net
In Senegal, an uprising is underway against authoritarian President
Macky Sall who has decided to "postpone" the elections scheduled for
February 25 (see CA 336). To date, hundreds of people have been
arrested, several injured by bullets and at least three protesters
killed. Most of the ammunition used is made in France. In the images
circulating in recent days, we can clearly see the use of "Cougar"
launchers used to throw grenades at demonstrators. We also see hand
grenades thrown by the police. These munitions and launchers are
manufactured by the company Alsetex, whose factory is based in Sarthe.
Explosive grenades were also used, the same models as those which
mutilated Sainte-Soline and elsewhere.
France is one of the world's leading arms exporters. Not only military
weapons, but also law enforcement weapons. 1 year ago, in February 2023,
the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced the sale of
military equipment to Senegal during a visit to Dakar, as part of an
African tour...
Source: Contre-attack.net
As of January 1, 2024, 75,897 people were surviving in prison, an
increase of 3,724 prisoners in 2023.
The International Prison Observatory (OIP) has published an
investigative report on the disciplinary machine that reigns in prisons.
This investigative work was carried out between October 2022 and
December 2023.
"In prison, the list of offenses punishable by disciplinary sanctions is
potentially infinite" underlines the OIP. A detainee may be punished for
"dress deemed inappropriate, a blocked eyepiece, a radio that refuses to
turn down the volume". It is the regime of arbitrariness which is
established there. If the prisoners cannot know precisely the offenses
that they can be accused of, anything becomes permissible for the
guards, who can assert their authority outside of all legality, for
reasons of personal revenge in particular.
The few legislative advances in terms of monitoring prison decisions are
far from enough. The written reports required on the facts giving rise
to a sanction in no way guarantee fair treatment of the disciplinary
procedure, since they remain cloistered behind prison walls. The right
to the assistance of a lawyer established since 2000 is rarely used and,
despite the obligation to provide the file at least 24 hours before the
disciplinary committee, it is extremely common for lawyers to only be
able to consult it. 'One hour before. Regardless of the laws that govern
this procedure, the fact remains that the prison administration finds
itself both judge and party where the head of the establishment has a
predominant place in the disciplinary committee. Even if it is not a
criminal trial, the disciplinary committee implements sanctions, which
in the majority of cases lead to the disciplinary unit, notes the OIP
investigation.
Placement in a disciplinary unit can last up to 30 days. These are cells
similar to those in police custody, therefore placing the prisoners in
conditions of incredible violence: there is total isolation, but also
very often the absence of hygiene, "windows revealing barely passing the
light", a daily one-hour outing in a "walking yard" which is nothing
other than another closed room, "not to mention the numerous cases of
violence and bullying by supervisors -es penitentiaries"... The prisoner
violates human dignity, it is a question of degrading and violent
treatment. It is a place where the violence of guards is carried out
with complete impunity, far from view.
"A fault can lead, in addition to the sanction decided by the
disciplinary committee, to cascading consequences on daily prison life -
for example in terms of work activity or detention regime - but also on
the course of execution of the sentence - in particular through the
decisions of the sentencing courts to grant or not furloughs, sentence
adjustments or sentence reductions" explains the OIP.
It is absolutely urgent to lift the silence on the unworthy conditions
in which prisoners survive and it is time to put an end to these places
of confinement and torture.
Sources: oip.org and Contre-attack.net
More than 13 years after the events, France was condemned by the
European Court of Human Rights for a police trap where for several hours
the cops surrounded hundreds of people, including minors, on Place
Bellecour in Lyon who demonstrated against the pension reform of that
time. In 2010, this police practice of encirclement was illegal, hence
the conviction. But in December 2021, a new national law enforcement
plan (SNMO) was voted on. It now legalizes this justified technique in
order to "avoid the use of law enforcement techniques that could present
greater risks of harm to people"! This technique "must, as soon as
circumstances permit, systematically provide a controlled exit point"
and must only be implemented "for a strictly necessary and proportionate
period", stipulates the document. The possibility offered to
demonstrators to leave the encirclement zone "must constantly be
reassessed with discernment.» Usual blah blah!
Sources: le monde.fr and SNMO
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4116
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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