Cameras boosted with algorithms, body scanners but also new types of doping controls… The bill on the Olympic Games, very focused on security, will be examined carefully in the Senate on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The main measure is to authorize so-called "augmented" cameras to detect suspicious crowd movements.

“The challenge is also to learn the lessons of what happened at the Stade de France with the Champions League final” at the end of May 2022, summarizes Senator LR Michel Savin to AFP.



The opening ceremony in mind

Between spectators without tickets climbing the gates, ticket holders blocked at the entrance, families sprayed with tear gas by the police or even thefts and assaults, the final had turned into a nightmare.

And this fiasco had revived fears surrounding the securing of the Paris Olympics, in particular the opening ceremony on the Seine, an unprecedented configuration.

The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, will come to defend a text of 19 articles presented so far as “minor” or “technical”.

Rugby World Cup tested

Claimed in particular by the interministerial delegate to the Olympic Games, Michel Cadot, the use of "augmented" cameras is "unprecedented" explains the National Commission for IT and Liberties (CNIL), which "raises new and substantial issues in terms of privacy " , especially when the images come from drones.

The text was groomed after the opinion of the Cnil and the Council of State.

The experimentation of these cameras of a new type, until June 30, 2025, can begin as soon as the law comes into force, and also concerns "recreational" or "cultural" events which are "particularly exposed to risks of an act of terrorism or serious threat to the safety of persons", as well as in their surroundings and in the surrounding transport.

They could therefore be tested for the Rugby World Cup in 2023.

“Permanent measures”

This text, “essentially security”, “requires vigilance” because it will in reality introduce “permanent measures”, estimates PS senator Jean-Jacques Lozach.

"We should not fall into a security escalation that undermines individual freedoms," he warns.

The government has been ensuring for months that it does not want to introduce facial recognition for the Olympics.

An LR amendment on the subject was withdrawn in committee, said the project's rapporteur, Agnès Canayer (LR).

On the subject of "augmented" cameras, the law commission has provided new "guarantees", explained Agnès Canayer to AFP.

For example, an amendment was adopted so that “processing includes human control measures and a risk management system to prevent and correct the occurrence of possible biases or misuse”.

The question of biases, and possible errors arising therefrom, is on everyone's mind.


"We have also strengthened the role of the CNIL to support the creators of algorithms", further specified the rapporteur.

"There is an awareness that these Games must succeed, that it is a national issue, and that the government must be given the means to ensure that they take place in the best conditions," she said. .

But this project arouses the anger of the Quadrature du Net association for which “the government is using the Olympics as a pretext to pass measures aimed at accelerating the surveillance of the population”.

Gene doping

The possibility of body scanners, which already exist in airports, as well as the “screening” of accredited people in the fan zone, will also be debated, predicts Michel Savin.

Another sensitive subject: the possibility of genetic testing, in very limited cases, in order to comply with world anti-doping standards.

On this article, the law commission has introduced a distinction.

The most invasive genetic tests, with “coding DNA”, aimed at verifying that there is no genetic doping (gene therapy, messenger RNA, gene editing), will be in “experimentation”.

Dreaded by the anti-doping police, these cases of "genetic doping" have never been detected so far.

While genetic fingerprinting type tests, to verify that there has been no transfusion or sample substitution, will be authorized without experimentation, detailed Agnès Canayer.

The project also reinforces the sanctions in the event of intrusion into a sports arena.

An amendment by centrist senator Claude Kern extends the sanction to "first-time offenders", with no history.

In addition to malicious supporters, the measure may target actions by environmental activists.

The text also provides for derogations from the opening of shops on Sunday during the Olympics.

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