Facial recognition at FC Metz, a controversial experiment

By saying "favorable" to facial recognition in stadiums, Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu relaunched, Friday, January 31, a controversial subject for many associations and organizations. The controversy took shape ten days earlier, when journalist Olivier Tesquet revealed to StreetPress media that a Metz-based video analysis company, Two-i, "tested (his) device at the Metz football stadium".

"We refuse to become laboratory rats for facial recognition", was indignant on January 24, the National Association of supporters (ANS). Experiments which however "vocation to be valued on the big sporting events that France organizes", estimates Roxana Maracineanu, who explains that "it is not the supporters who are expressly targeted but the security around the sporting event in a way General. "

"These experiments tickle us a little about the possibilities of extension, and the fact that this happens first in the stadiums worries us", reacts Bernard Leclerc, president of the messina section of the League for Human Rights ( LDH), contacted by France 24. "We have noticed in the past that the security measures taken in stadiums - such as the administrative prohibitions on access to sports arenas - were then transposed into law to all citizens with administrative bans on demonstrations developed by the prefectures. "

Today there are three types of stadium ban: judicial (pronounced by the judge), administrative (decided by a prefect) and commercial (decided by the club).

"Lack of public debate"

The main stakeholders, FC Metz and the company Two-i, denied having conducted the experiment in the Saint-Symphorien stadium during a match. The Ligue 1 club explained on Twitter that "only in order to enforce stadium commercial bans, a facial comparison solution has been tested. It therefore exclusively concerns people who are prohibited from entering the stadium."

The director general of the club, Hélène Schrub, for her part spoke to the Lorraine Republican of "technical tests" conducted on "volunteer staff of the start-up with a view to possible future application".

For his part, the co-founder of Two-I affirmed on local television viàMirabelle "(not to have) made facial recognition at the Saint-Symphorien stadium because it is illegal". "There is a very specific legal framework for its use in stadiums, and the only things we did were internal tests to make sure that the facial recognition algorithm, if it needed 'to be used, works,' said Guillaume Cazeneuve.

>> To read: "In France, facial recognition is gaining ground with small forced steps"

"The problem is that this experiment was done in a hidden way, deplores the spokesperson for the National Association of supporters (ANS), contacted by France 24. This raises the question of informing the public since the facial recognition is scary, rightly or wrongly, and neither FC Metz nor Two-I have made the effort for true transparency. Without this, there can be no acceptance, this lack of information is not satisfactory. " The club and the start-up, contacted by France 24, had not responded to our requests at the time of writing this article.

Like the LDH-Metz, the ANS especially regrets an "absence of public debate". "Facial recognition is still something intrusive because people lose their anonymity and are automatically identified without knowing anything," says Bernard Leclerc. The ANS spokesperson believes that such a "security system seems completely disproportionate" if it only concerns commercial stadium bans.

Fight against terrorism and social project?

The Minister of Sports was also in favor of experimenting with facial recognition in stadiums in the broader context of the fight against terrorism. "There is a real problem of fighting radicalization in France but also in the world. So we have to watch over the fight against terrorism, and when we have people gathered around a sporting event, it can be very dangerous, "said Roxana Maracineanu.

"It is true that there have been attacks, but mass recognition worries us and creates an atmosphere of general suspicion", regrets the LDH-Metz. "There are American cities (like San Fransisco, Editor's note) who abandon these facial recognition devices because it does not work, and we are getting into it quietly when we know that it can be a means of control like in China. "

>> See: "With 'social credit', China ranks 'good' and 'bad' citizens"

More generally, facial recognition questions the "model of society we want", underlines the CNIL in its official position published on its site. "The objective is to avoid discovering one day, after the fact, that, by the progressive accumulation of new use cases of this technology, by its low noise diffusion in the daily life of the citizens, the society would have changed without this change having been the subject of a general debate and a deliberate political choice beforehand, "explains the independent administrative authority.

"What model of society do we want?" Questions ANS in the same way. "Putting the cart before the horse is what FC Metz did with this experiment."

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