2024-07-02 12:13:02
As algorithmic video surveillance (VSA) experiments continue to be requested and deployed by prefectures – during the Cannes Film Festival or at Roland-Garros for example – we are launching the second phase of our campaign to fight against the empire of surveillance! As we believe that mobilization at the local level is the most relevant and powerful way to push back the invasion of surveillance, we have thought of new tools to help the inhabitants of French cities to fight against VSA in their community.
A few weeks ago we we announced our battle plan to expose the hypocrisy behind the expansion of algorithmic surveillance of public space. Indeed, the Olympic Games are instrumentalized to accelerate the political agenda institutions and police authorities that wish to add software to the cameras allowing to analyze our actions on the street. The “official” experiments with this technology began in last April. They took place during festive events, which we list on our collaborative tool, the “Carré”. For the most part, these are practical opportunities to test these technologies unrelated to concrete security risks. This is evidenced by the justifications for the prefectural authorizations, which claim to explain the choice to monitor the Paris metro during a concert by a war on the other side of the world or an attack that took place several years ago. These reasons are copied and pasted according to the decrees, demonstrating the total lack of effort by the prefectures to contextualize the use of this technology.
Furthermore, since the “Law on the Olympic and Paralympic Games” created a first legal regime for the VSA in French lawthe promoters of surveillance do not hesitate to put forward a so-called “respect for the legal framework”. This is nothing more than a smokescreen, as many surveillance projects continue to thrive illegally. : whether it is the program Prevent PCP implemented in stations by the SNCF, or private companies which continue to sell their VSA software to cities – such as Thalès in Reims or Briefcam in Brest – these multiple local initiatives are tolerated by the public authorities. To learn more about the current situation, we have collected and summarized in a brochure (available here) the information needed to understand what VSA is, the reasons for its deployment and the coherent political project that is emerging behind its currently temporary uses. Don’t hesitate to read it, print it and distribute it!
Now, with this new phase of our campaign, we invite you to take action! If the arrival of the VSA is pushed by national authorities and surveillance manufacturers, we can counter it by opposing it in a delocalized and multiplied manner throughout France. The city of Montpellier thus adopted in 2022 a resolution banning biometric surveillance in the streets, following the momentum launched by US cities such as Boston and Austin, which had also refused to monitor their residents with biometric analysis tools.
We therefore call on you to join this momentum and take the fight to your city! For this, we have designed and made available several tools on this page. First, you will find a standard letter to send to ask your mayor to commit to never installing algorithmic video surveillance in your city. This is just a template, you can obviously adapt it or make your own letter.
If you type the name of your municipality, you can download several communication elements adapted to the name of the place where you live! We offer you both a flyer to distribute to inform and alert people about VSA and posters to stick in the streets to make this fight visible. Also, you can create a visual to share on social networks in order to make visible the request to ban VSA that you have made to your mayor! Do not hesitate to do it individually or with a collective of your city and to keep us informed. We will then list on our site the municipalities that have been contacted as part of this mobilization!
The goal is simple: together, we can demonstrate that there is strong popular opposition to the surveillance of our streets. By multiplying actions in the cities of France, we will be able to break down the dominant security discourse that presents these technologies for analyzing our actions as necessary and their installation inevitable. On the contrary, we can testify together to our collective refusal of constant police surveillance, and defend the city as a space for creation, freedom and care. Join the mobilization, demand the banning of VSA in your city!
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