"Veesion" and algorithmic surveillance in supermarkets ---- Algorithmic
surveillance is not just for our streets, cities, and public spaces.Like cameras, these surveillance devices are expanding, becoming
normalized, and gradually insinuating themselves into our daily lives.
"Veesion" is a French start-up that sells algorithmic surveillance
software to supposedly detect supermarket thefts. ---- In concrete
terms, it involves installing an algorithm on supermarket cameras that
identifies gestures considered suspicious in order to detect the "bad
intentions of potential shoplifters".
In March 2023, the start-up raised more than 10 million euros. In June
2024, it announced more than 150 employees and more than 8 million in
turnover.
It sells its surveillance system to Carrefour, Leclerc, BioCoop and many
others.
What is also important to know is the relocation of image analysis in
near real time to Madagascar.
The objective is purely financial: to promise its customers (large or
small stores) a reduction of "more than 60% of losses linked to
shoplifting" and to save "1 to 3% of the turnover" that would be stolen
from them. In his presentation in 2021, the creator of Veesion went
further: his software was to protect large-scale distribution from
future social unrest due to social distress (understand: protect large
stores from poor populations pushed to theft by the economic situation)!
La Quadrature du Net had sounded the alarm from the start: by monitoring
consumers' actions, the start-up analyzes behavioral data - called
biometric data - particularly protected under French and European law.
Such processing is prohibited in principle by Article 9 of the GDPR and
Article 6 of the Data Protection Act, and the exceptions to this
prohibition are strict. However, none of these conditions apply to the
"Veesion" system, which therefore flouts this prohibition.
Even the CNIL has gotten involved. In particular, it wanted to alert all
of its customers by requiring information on such a breach of the law to
be displayed in the stores concerned. Veesion tried to urgently suspend
this procedure, but the Council of State rejected the request on June
21. This is a small setback for algorithmic video surveillance in
supermarkets, but the case has yet to be judged on its merits.
The company "Veesion" contains the concentration of the excesses of
start-ups on the digital market: trivialization of surveillance
technologies, open non-compliance with the law, dependence on labor
exploited on the other side of the world, and strong approximation
around the effectiveness of its software.
Source: la quadrature du Net
High-level sport and the French army
At the Paris Olympics, 78 of the 571 French athletes selected were
military personnel, including 38 from the Army, 16 from the Air and
Space Force, 13 from the Navy and 11 from the National Gendarmerie. 20
disciplines represented. Some defended their title won three years
earlier in Tokyo, such as Warrant Officer Clarisse Agbégnénou (judo),
Sergeant Jean Quiquampoix (shooting) - they are both gendarmes - or Air
Force Sergeant Enzo Lefort (fencing). "If we count the disabled people
who qualified for the Paralympic Games, that makes 104 soldiers. That's
35% more than in Tokyo! Since the first Olympic Games in 1896, half of
the French medals have been won by soldiers...
Source: defense.gouv.fr
The Noise and the Smell
We knew about tear gas, which suffocates and irritates the eyes. Rubber
bullets that break bones and destroy eyes. Explosive grenades that tear
off limbs. In terms of innovation in repressive horror, France has just
pushed the limits. An order for new grenades that cause a flash of light
so powerful that it blinds people nearby was placed by the State before
the summer. And sound cannons designed to cause hearing damage are being
tested. Finally, munitions containing synthetic DNA are being tested:
Almost impossible to clean, and detectable using an ultraviolet lamp,
they make it possible to arrest, weeks later, people sprayed with these
chemical markers. All the senses are attacked: touch, sight, hearing ...
smell was missing. The media Reflets reveals the invention of weapons
designed to repel and mark demonstrators. A discovery by the Anatox firm
which "offers the police innovative olfactory identification or
deterrence." This new "crowd management" tool was presented before the
Olympic Games. This Anatox company created in 2018 presents itself as an
"Engineering & integration laboratory for innovative solutions in the
field of environment, safety, security and health"
Anatox offers "stunning olfactory solutions". Concretely, these products
sprayed using a water cannon or tear gas, which emit a nauseating odor
supposed to disperse the crowds so unbearable it is. A stinking liquid
propelled with water cannons, at high pressure, which contains a
chemical mixture with a pestilential odor, which remains on the skin and
clothes, to humiliate the victims for a long time: this weapon already
exists abroad, guess where?
In Israel, the authorities have developed a "skunk water", literally
"skunk water". A product from the Odortec company first used by the
Israeli army against Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank in
2008. The aim was to punish the inhabitants of a village who were
revolting against colonization. Those affected described the smell "like
a mixture of excrement, noxious gases and a rotting donkey," which can
cause vomiting. The product is very difficult to wash off and can soak
into fabrics for months. More recently, this "skunk water" was used on
Israeli citizens protesting against Netanyahu. In France, CRS officers
admitted in 2018 to having already mixed the water from their water
cannons with "raw materials mainly used have various origins: powdered
horns and cattle hooves, crushed feathers, blood, oil." A foaming water
based on "proteins," according to the confidences of a CRS officer in an
article in Le Parisien! At the time, this nauseating mixture was still
artisanal. The product proposed by Anatox, if used, would go one step
further. Especially since the company also offers specific and more
discreet odorous products, fired with LBD, which can subsequently
identify targeted demonstrators, using sniffer dogs.
Sources: Contre-attaque, reflets.infos
Mass arrests of environmentalists during the Olympics
During and before the Olympics, the repression of the slightest militant
expression was maximal. The collective "Extention Rebellion" won a
medal: 70 people deprived of liberty and the fundamental right to
express their ideas. The vast majority were arrested on the basis of
presumption of actions that did not even take place, therefore of
intentions, and released without follow-up, after being intimidated.
Nevertheless, there have been at least summons to court for refusing to
give fingerprints and DNA, not to mention the hours spent in police custody.
Source: reporterre.net
Mass profiling and political discrimination at the Olympics
In view of the Olympics, the State has implemented all the security
powers accumulated in recent years: drones, QR codes, security
perimeters, algorithmic video surveillance, home visits, house arrests
(we will come back to this in another article in this section),
preventive arrests, intense police presence, helicopters, etc. In an
unprecedented way, all of these means are used at the same time and on a
very large scale. In the midst of this repressive frenzy, another
exceptional measure deserves attention: the extraordinary use of police
files to exclude from jobs related to the Olympics people who have or
are supposed to have activist activities. A form of discrimination based
on opaque criteria.
Investigations were carried out on a very large number of people, both
the sports teams and delegations but also anyone who had to work around
this event. On July 17, the "resigned" Minister of the Interior
announced that 870,000 investigations had been carried out leading to
the removal of "3,922 people likely to pose a threat to the security of
the event". Gérald Darmanin boasted that "131 people listed as S" and
"167 people listed as far left" had been refused accreditation. Behind
this announcement effect, there is a reality, that of massive
surveillance and arbitrary choices made in complete opacity. The
sprawling system of police control and the multiplication of police
files shows a new efficiency: being able - on a very large scale - to
exclude, isolate, constrain individuals and deprive them of their
freedoms outside of any judicial framework and by arbitrary
administrative decisions. This political discrimination has been
accompanied by the repression and invisibility of any form of criticism
of the Olympic Games. People have been placed under house arrest,
demonstrations have been banned along the flame's route, activists have
been arrested, in particular for putting up stickers in the metro, while
journalists have been taken into custody for covering a symbolic visit
to the damage caused by the Games in Seine-Saint-Denis, led by Saccage 2024.
Sources: Quadrature du Net
Olympic MICAs
The "individual administrative control and surveillance measures"
(MICAs) are a direct result of the 2015 state of emergency, which was
extended in 2017 by the so-called "internal security and fight against
terrorism" law (Silt). This system is based on the state's suspicion
that a particular "behaviour" "constitutes a particularly serious threat
to security and public order", or that this person "adheres to theses
inciting the commission of acts of terrorism or advocating such acts".
With the consequence of issuing a Mica, i.e. a house arrest of up to
three months (renewable), as well as administrative searches and an
obligation to report daily to the police station, all on the simple
basis of white notes from the intelligence services. Measures directly
pronounced by the Ministry of the Interior against the person concerned
with immediate application (then subject to appeal before the
administrative court).
On July 17, about ten days before the opening of the Olympic Games, the
sinister Minister of the Interior released an initial figure of 155
Micas promulgated by his services in order to "keep at a distance" from
the Olympic Games (opening ceremony or passage of the flame) people
"considered very dangerous or potentially capable of taking action",
"the people being monitored[are]all close to far-right, far-left and
Islamist movements" (L'Express, 24/7).
As we could have guessed, this figure of 155 was to increase
considerably. According to an official report released on August 2 at
the end of the first week of the Olympic Games by the Minister of the
Interior, during a trip to the Saint-Denis Comico: there are already
"more than 700 administrative measures" (Micas) that have been issued in
connection with the Olympic Games "since the beginning of the year", and
which have been followed by "hundreds of home visits"... As of August 9,
only eight challenges before the administrative court have resulted in
the cancellation of an Olympic Mica! In general, these Olympic
administrative assignments were issued in the municipality where the
person resides, with a daily morning check-in at the police station.
Some received an assignment for a maximum duration of three months, and
others only for the duration of the Olympic Games. In addition, most
were searched (which is called a "home visit"). The sentences for
non-compliance with a MICAs have been handed down: 6 months in prison
with a committal warrant here, 5 months in prison with an electronic
bracelet there! Heavy stuff!
Source: sansnom.noblogs.org
In Saint Denis (93) young people are organizing against police violence
Since his accession to the mayor's office during the 2020 municipal
elections, the socialist Mathieu Hanotin has drastically strengthened
his municipal police force. By first arming it, then by recruiting
massively, going so far as to triple its workforce in a few years. The
current workforce is 85 police officers, 15 public space guards (GEP)
and 20 CSU (video surveillance) operators.
In April 2021, Yanis, a 20-year-old man, was in a coma after a scooter
accident that occurred while he was being chased by the police. At the
beginning of June, the young man lost his life. A truth and justice
committee was formed around his family and friends. The town hall's
all-security policy is accompanied by an explosion in the number of
video surveillance cameras in the city's public spaces. In a report from
the city council on the adoption of the initial budget for 2024, the
town hall states: "In total, by the end of 2024, the town will have 488
cameras, for a total investment of 6.7 million euros." G. Darmanin,
during his press briefing on security on August 2, 2024, congratulated
the mayor of Saint-Denis for the security effort initiated in his city
and promised that it would continue after the Games, with a legacy in
policing and video surveillance. It is in this context that the Stop
Police Violence collective was created in 2022. It was born from a
convergence between the Vérité et Justice pour Yanis collective and
other activist groups and collectives in the city.
The Stop Police Violence collective in Saint-Denis conducts patrols to
raise awareness among residents about their rights against the police.
It denounces the "militarization" of the city, which increased even more
during the Olympic Games.
Sources: Médiapart
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4278
_________________________________________
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
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten