Robert Injey, representative of the Communist Party of Alpes-Maritimes, held a press briefing yesterday at noon in front of the Nice City Hall. He is calling for the suspension of the new security system known as “facial recognition”.
His argument is uncompromising… worth a read!
Estrosi or the Big Brother fantasy!
The 2019 edition of the Carnival is being used as a pretext to launch the real-life trial of facial recognition. Let’s overlook the situational pretexts used to justify the operation (finding a child in the crowd…), the reality is that the security market is enormous and, in this field, Christian Estrosi is the best sales representative. It is indeed an obsession for Christian Estrosi, a headlong rush into total security.
After Reporty (generalized snitching system), after police officers in schools, after checkpoints at train stations, after widespread video surveillance, after the largest municipal police force in France, after facial recognition in a high school, after the emotion recognition system in the tramway, after acquiring new LBDs for the municipal police, now there’s facial recognition in public spaces.
None of these systems would have been useful during the July 14, 2016 attack. But no matter, Christian Estrosi is in an ongoing escalation of security logic. And the people of Nice are being used as guinea pigs to test everything that can be imagined in terms of security excesses.
Excesses, because, when put together, all the successive systems the mayor of Nice wants to implement represent the expression of a dangerous totalitarian technological drift. It is indeed very concerning that the CNIL seems to have been misled in the setup of the real-life “test” of facial recognition. This is illustrative of yet another rash action by the mayor of Nice who, in this matter, doesn’t concern himself too much with democratic considerations, as long as it can grab people’s attention.
Many organizations express great concern, especially since these drifts are occurring in a national context marked by the criminalization of activist actions and the desire to legislate to restrict the right to protest.
Who will decide tomorrow? What use will be made of these “technologies”? What place will remain for individual freedoms?
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” From this perspective, C. Estrosi is working towards establishing a totalitarian technological hell that we thought only existed in science fiction novels…
To “help” Christian Estrosi in his reflection, the communists in Nice gifted him a series of books this Wednesday: “1984” by George Orwell, “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley—emblematic works on totalitarian technological hell.
In the immediate future, we are calling for the suspension of all these security measures.
(“Estrosi is watching you”)
