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Marseille Panopticon

posted by hubie on Monday June 20 2022, @01:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-spy-with-my-little-camera dept.

looorg writes:

Marseille's battle against the surveillance state

Across the world, video cameras have become an accepted feature of urban life. Many cities in China now have dense networks of them. London and New Delhi aren't far behind.

Now France is playing catch-up. Since 2015, the year of the Bataclan terrorist attacks, the number of cameras in Paris has increased fourfold. The police have used such cameras to enforce pandemic lockdown measures and monitor protests like those of the Gilets Jaunes. And a new nationwide security law, adopted last year, allows for video surveillance by police drones during events like protests and marches.

[...] Concerns have been raised throughout the country. But the surveillance rollout has met special resistance in Marseille, France's second-biggest city. The boisterous, rebellious Mediterranean town sits on some of the fault lines that run through modern France. Known for hip bars, artist studios, and startup hubs, it is also notorious for drugs, poverty, and criminal activity. It has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in Europe but is stranded in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, a region that leans far right. The city pushes back. Its attitude could be summed up by graffiti you might pass as you drive in on the A7 motorway: "La vie est (re)belle."

Big brother is watching you. The cameras are there for your protection. To prevent crime. But apparently they are only used in about 1-2% of investigations according to reviews. So what is the other 98-99% for? Security theater? Politicians being hard on crime, or having a hard on for crime. Panopticon for the masses that are not involved in crime? It's very hard to measure the effect of prevention in that regard.

But I guess people are starting to get a tad tired of being watched all the time like we are there for the entertainment of some big brother peeping Tom.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @04:25AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @04:25AM (#1254514)

    Nothing about cameras or panopticon

    Indeed. TFA

    Not long after the 2020 elections, the new mayor of Marseille called for an audit of video surveillance in the city. The council is still sitting on the study, which was delivered in October, but preliminary findings were published in the local newspaper The Provence. There are 42 dedicated agents; at any given time, fewer than five are on duty, and each is responsible for 35 screens. The system is not cheap; the newspaper highlighted the cost of installing each camera (over €20,000 per device), renting the optical fiber (€6.5 million a year), and maintaining the cameras, including cleaning and replacing bulbs (€2.8 million a year). Many of the images are not of good enough quality to use. And 272 cameras—over 15% of the total—are rarely consulted.

    So, a massive waste of money with little or no result in any kind of practical surveillance.

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    Everything about right leaning Marseille

    Not right leaning any more

    Marseille’s government does seem to have cooled on the idea of video surveillance. The Big Data of Public Tranquillity Project, whose test period ran from 2018 to 2020, had been the pet scheme of the previous, right-wing mayor. The coalition of socialists, ecologists, and activists that rose to power in the 2020 city elections promised to pause video surveillance. This has been more difficult than initially anticipated, says Hugon, because of the difficulty of terminating contracts early.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 20 2022, @02:43PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 20 2022, @02:43PM (#1254613)

    >Not right leaning any more

    Regardless of who won the last election, there's a significant portion of the population who openly hate / disrespect / socially and economically discriminate against other significant portions of the population because they are somehow different. Not too different in Marseille, France than Stillwater, Texas.

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    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 20 2022, @02:45PM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 20 2022, @02:45PM (#1254614)

      Technical adjustment, the movie referred to Stillwater Oklahoma - but when you find yourself in places named Stillwater in Texas they will likely be much the same.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @05:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @05:24PM (#1254676)

        Artistic, communal, nature-loving hippies selling harmony bracelets?

  • (Score: 2) by ewk on Tuesday June 21 2022, @07:17AM

    by ewk (5923) on Tuesday June 21 2022, @07:17AM (#1254838)

    "This has been more difficult than initially anticipated,..."

    Why? Stopping to use it is quite different from stopping to pay for it.
    Even a Frenchman should understand that :-)

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