Val-d’Oise: facial recognition used “outside the legal framework”

Val-d’Oise: facial recognition used “outside the legal framework”
Val-d’Oise: facial recognition used “outside the legal framework”

Disclose had revealed, in November 2023, that the police were illegally using security software reconnaissance face of the company Briefcam. Six days later, the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmaninannounced that it had launched a administrative investigation on the subject. The report of theIGPNof theIGA and of the'IGGN which results from it has just been published.

Facial recognition activated following the riots

This document notes a “cas unique to activate the functionality of facial recognition of the software – which offers video stream analysis only in its basic version –, in legal proceedings. He intervened during the riots following the death of Nahelwhich took place from June 27 to July 7, 2023. The judicial investigation, carried out by a gendarmerie unit, aimed to identify the perpetrators of the damage affecting the town hall and Gendarmerie buildings in Pitsin the Val-d'Oise.

In detail, investigators from the research brigade ont “proceeded to capture numerous video images”. In a “concern for speed”, these investigators “requested the assistance of central criminal intelligence service (SCRC)” of judicial center of the National Gendarmerie (PJGN) they .

Given the volume of video streams to be used, the use of Briefcam software was decided”specifies the report.

People suspected of having participated in the riots targeted by the system

The inspections continue: “In this exceptional context, the facial recognition functionality of this software was activated at the SCRC, by integrating into Briefcam photographs of people suspected by investigators to have participated in the riotsfrom various sources, including the processing of criminal records (TAJ)”.

Two video sequences were highlighted, on which two people appeared whose photos had been integrated into the software. But investigators ultimately “excluded their formal participation damage to public buildings”.

According to the report, if “the use of this facial recognition functionality has not led to any indictment of individuals initially suspected”, il “was however made outside the legal framework.

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