Paris (AFP)

The subject does not really untie the tongues.

"It is clearly a taboo subject, but I can assure you that it interests the clubs", confides to AFP on condition of anonymity the boss of a private security company, which worked in particular with the Olympic of Marseilles.

With an eventful start to the season in L1, punctuated by numerous incidents (throwing projectiles, invading the field, clashes between supporters ...), the issue of security has become more significant.

The government, through a letter from Jean-Michel Blanquer and Roxana Maracineanu addressed to the Professional Football League (LFP) on Friday, promised "a strong response", referring in particular to a reflection on the training of stewards, but without taking concrete action. new measures.

Real-time video facial recognition is not authorized in public spaces in France.

And if a recent parliamentary report submitted at the beginning of September to Prime Minister Jean Castex pleads for more experiments, in particular with a view to the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympic Games-2024 in Paris, the subject remains eminently sensitive.

"The tool is attractive"

"The tool is attractive for football clubs, it replaces human profiling which can be faulty", assures this boss.

Facial recognition software could for example be useful to filter at the entrance to stadiums, and thus prevent stadium bans from entering the enclosure, "it's a little more complicated to use in a crowd, where people hide, ”he explains.

More than a year and a half ago, FC Metz was caught in a whirlwind after testing such a device during an L1 meeting against Strasbourg.

The National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (Cnil) had banged its fist on the table by sending a warning to the club, which has not tried again since.

"The Metz episode clearly cooled a lot of clubs. But we know that private companies have contacted a lot of clubs since. Now, we do not know where this is", assures Kilian Valentin, one of the porters. words of the national association of supporters (ANS).

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In order to be able to test facial recognition, it is in particular necessary to prevent the filtered population, which also implies having a file with their contact details and photos of the people.

This is the case with the commercial stadium bans (ICS) issued by clubs.

"But hey, we are resolutely against this kind of liberticidal device. The clubs do not need it", estimates Kilian Valentin.

"For the IDS (administrative bans and / or pronounced by justice) in a very large majority of cases, there is an obligation to score outside the stadiums. The ICS, the clubs are supposed to know them", he adds .

LFP watch

There is also the question of the reliability of certain facial recognition software.

"There is an error rate which varies between 80 and 90% in the countries where this has been tested. There are also racial biases", assures the lawyer Pierre Barthélémy, for whom it would be "unacceptable" to use such a tool as is.

"There are software that work very well, with a margin of error of less than 0.5%. It depends on the price you pay", nuances the entrepreneur in the field of security.

"There is no reliable facial recognition system, with a bearable quality-price ratio", for his part assured AFP Pierre-Marie Grappin, the person in charge of the security of Montpellier, one of the few to evoke the subject, proof that these software are therefore scrutinized by some L1 clubs.

Despite the reservations, despite the absence of law, the LFP nevertheless admitted very diplomatically to carry out "a technological and legal watch on the subject".

A watch that risks taking up more and more space.

© 2021 AFP