French high court issues decision supporting AI-powered surveillance cameras for Paris Olympics

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The highest constitutional court in France issued a decision Wednesday supporting the use of AI-powered surveillance cameras for the 2024 Paris Olympics despite privacy concerns. 

The Constitutional Council ruled that certain contested provisions of a law relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2024 do not infringe upon the right to respect for private life, because it ensures that development and implementation of algorithmic processing stays under people's control. 

After hours of heated debate last month, the French Parliament cleared the final legislative hurdle to pass a controversial bill to launch the experimental use of large-scale, real-time camera systems supported by an algorithm to identify suspicious behavior, including unsupervised luggage and sounding alarms warning of possible crowd stampedes, Politico reported. 

The system would be in effect until March 2025 under the law, but some left leaning French MPs had argued the use of AI-powered surveillance cameras in Paris would be disregarding the freedom to come and go, the right to demonstrate, freedom of opinion, and the right to respect for private life. 

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Demonstrators gathered in front of the Olympic rings of Paris 2024 on April 20, 2023, protest against pension reform. A French court this week approved controversial AI-based security measures for the 2024 games. (Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

They argued the scope of the law was too broad and lacked guarantees that the algorithmic processing of images would be limited to solely