Facial recognition tomorrow in Ligue 1 stadiums?

• FC Metz found itself at the heart of a controversy Wednesday after revelations on an experiment with a facial recognition system in its stadium.
• The Lorraine club confirms that it plans to use it to spot people who are banned from the stadium, but specifies that it only carried out empty tests, which therefore did not concern its supporters.
• Would facial recognition have its place in football stadiums in France? This device deserves a great debate, according to the people interviewed by "20 Minutes".

When two highly sensitive subjects collide, inevitably, the deflagration is strong. FC Metz found itself at the heart of a big controversy, Wednesday afternoon, when the journalist Olivier Tesquet, author of the book On the trace on the surveillance devices which multiply in our society, revealed in an interview granted to Street Press that a Messina start-up had "tested a facial recognition device at the Metz football stadium".

Explosive cocktail. On the one hand the supporters, already winding up against deprivation of liberty in recent months and who are tired of playing the guinea pigs of security devices, and on the other hand facial recognition, perceived as the ultimate weapon of a world become Orwellian . The excitement was quick on Twitter. Fans felt betrayed, spied on without their knowledge. The club immediately defended itself on the social network. Contacted Thursday by 20 Minutes , he denounces a shortcut. “The tests were carried out empty, at the stadium, with employees of the company, says Hélène Schrub, the general manager of FC Metz. Nothing is done behind the backs of the supporters. "

As part of the Larrivé law, only to enforce stadium commercial bans, a facial comparison solution was tested. It therefore exclusively concerns people who are prohibited from entering the stadium.

In fact, no device is in place or has been tested at full size. The club is considering how to control people who have been banned from the stadium. Unlike administrative bans, decided by a prefect, and judicial bans, taken by a judge, their commercial counterparts, created in 2016 by Larrivé law, can be decided by a club, unilaterally, on the grounds of "non-compliance provisions of the general conditions of sale or the stadium's internal regulations relating to the security of events ”.

But the sanctioned person will not show up at the police station, as with the other two prohibitions. It's up to the club to spot her if she tries to enter. "It is impossible for our stewards, who see thousands of people parading," continues Hélène Schrub. So we are looking at how to enforce these prohibitions. When Two-I (the start-up in question, specialized in video stream analysis) came to present this solution to us, we said why not. "

Concretely, cameras would film the entrances and be linked to a file containing the photos of the persons concerned. And "only" them, insists the leader. "In no case will we have a file with all our subscribers, all our customers or worse, all the people who enter the stadium one day. This is really science fiction, she says. I understand the fear and anguish of some people, who can tell themselves that the club will know the details of their movements in the stadium. But not at all. The software database will only be populated by people who are banned from the stadium. "

The CNIL on the front line

FC Metz does not give specific deadlines for setting up the system. If the technological tests are conclusive, you will then have to ask for authorization to create this file at the CNIL (National Commission for Data Protection, which is the authority on the subject). A stage which promises to be unacceptable, according to Me Pierre Barthélémy, lawyer of the National Association of supporters (ANS). "She will say no, because there is no decree or law that authorizes it," he says.

If the legislation can always evolve, the subject of personal data is sensitive, and in the opinion of those contacted, deserves to be debated. It is a certain vision of our society that seems to be playing out there, as in October 2019, when the PACA region had undertaken to establish a facial recognition system in two high schools in Nice and Marseille.

The Paca region forced to review its facial recognition project https://t.co/Lnkub7H541

"It seems disproportionate to use this for stadium trade bans," said the lawyer. We are not talking about delinquents or people who pose a risk of disturbing public order, but people who have not respected the general conditions of sale of the club, who for example once insulted a steward . Does that justify deploying such an intrusive device for privacy? The general principles of necessity and proportionality will block the use of this technology. "

On December 19, a conference entitled “Facial recognition: Prohibition, experimentation, generalization, regulation. Where we are ? Where are we going ? Took place in the National Assembly. Discussions must also exist in football. Because FC Metz would not be the only resident of Ligue 1 to consider the thing. “We talked with other clubs, recognizes Guillaume Cazenave, the general manager of Two-I. They told us that they did not want to put the supporters on their backs. Some are afraid of their reaction, perhaps due to a lack of knowledge on the subject. It is legitimate that there should be a debate, but it must be informed. "

Reliable or not reliable?

Data protection is an issue, as is the reliability of the technology. On this point, the start-up mentions scientific studies according to which the success rate of facial recognition algorithms is 99.5%. That is potentially an error out of 200. "We must accept this small margin of error which allows us to focus on a few photos that have generated an alert," says Guillaume Cazenave.

Olivier Tesquet says he is skeptical about the scientific figures, stemming from experiments, because "in real conditions, it's not the same thing at all anymore". In 2017, the Guardian , citing an official report, reported the figure of 92% of false reports in a facial recognition test conducted by Welsh police before the Champions League final in Cardiff. But for the journalist and author, the debate should not be only technical. "It's not fair" does it work or not? ". It is “do we want, collectively, to deploy this technology?” Whether in a stadium, a public space, etc. But I am glad we are talking about it. "

The leader of Two-I too. He knows that there is nothing trivial about this:

“Many people agree to abandon their personal data to social networks or to communicate their bank details to e-commerce sites. But they are less comfortable with the idea that their face can be grasped and analyzed by a stranger, hidden behind a screen. In the outside world, the face is most personal. We are touching on the intimate. ”

The Professional Football League is following this very closely, anyway.

Society

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• Facial recognition
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