French police last foiled an ISIS plot last week for a knife rampage during Christmas celebrations, showing the country remains under constant threat from terrorists. The two men arrested had ISIS propaganda in their Paris homes. The arrests came as the
Civil liberty groups question facial recognition France tech rollout
France is a world leader in surveillance technology and it is already widely deployed by security forces across the country
10 May 2021
The government wanted to use real-time facial recognition tech during the gilets jaunes protest, one civil liberties group has saidBy Rory Mulholland
MPs may have blocked some of the government’s more extreme attempts to widen police use of facial recognition but surveillance technology is already widely deployed by security forces in France.
Its critics say its use is likely to be expanded.
France is a world leader in the technology, and French biometrics firm Idemia recently beat nearly 300 contenders to come first in a US government agency’s competition for the best algorithm to identify photos of individuals.
The aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo terror attack. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In light of recent Islamic terror attacks, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is calling for stringent security measures to be placed on convicted terrorists being released from prison. If the new measures are passed into law, a released terrorist could have his movement limited, including where he can live or what public events such as concerts or sporting events he could attend.
In 2015, ISIS members launched a series of coordinated shootings and bombings at a rock concert in the Bataclan theater and at a soccer match at Stade de France. Some of the perpetrators, like Salah Abdeslam and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had been radicalized in prison.
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France Proposes More Surveillance to Hunt for Potential Terrorists
The new bill, which some fear will curtail civil liberties, comes after a series of attacks and as the far right is stoking feelings of insecurity.
“We continue to be blind, doing surveillance on normal phone lines that nobody uses any longer,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, second from left, said of why he had proposed the bill.Credit.Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
April 28, 2021Updated 1:58 p.m. ET
PARIS The French government, responding to several attacks over the past seven months, presented a new anti-terrorism bill on Wednesday that would allow intense algorithmic surveillance of phone and internet communications and tighten restrictions on convicted terrorists emerging from prison.