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Guests :

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin (IFP) – Vice-president of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL)

Stéphanie Lacour (SL) – CNRS researcher

Meryem Marzouki (MM) – CNRS researcher

Jean-Luc Dugelay (JLD) – EURECOM researcher

Jean-Marc Manach (JMM) - internetactu.net

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Man – The question is about knowing where we are aiming.  And since technologies are moving very fast, we need to look upstream but nothing plays the role of the ethics committee (CCNE) in biological science, for instance when it comes to computer science. The CNIL has a regulating role and it has nothing to do with what the CCNE does. This comparison with Science of Living is relevant to us as there are technologies we didn’t want to develop. We said by thinking upstream, we don’t want reproductive human cloning. We stop research tending to point in this direction. Is there anything equivalent in Computer Science to a technology we would not like to develop?  Though without thinking ahead, industrials would shape it and there would be calls for proposal. To me, the facial recognition can be compared to the artificial uterus: this is something which will radically change security in our society and individual freedom. It is not perfectly running but there is money for funding it. It means there was not the same thinking upstream that one can find in biological science.

MV – IFP?

IFP - Your question is one of the many reasons why the CNIL is transforming itself into something else. Google is an American company. The French people, the 30 millions of customers consuming Google services are obedient to any terms of service the company would like to apply. Today Google respects the Californian law. Some of the services, like Google Latitude (allowing one to identify people in a given spatial environment) respects the Californian law. We may believe it’s tragic, that nothing can be done because most of the big Internet companies are not French. However these companies are opened to discussion with actors like the CNIL about private data since the organization took upstream several initiatives in this field to drive them on taking measures that abide by the French national rights. For instance, in regards with Street View (mapping street photographs with districts showing views of main cities in Europe), as the CNIL was alerted early enough, faces could be anonymised so that the service conforms with the 1995 law. As a result, Google accepted to apply these measures in Europe. I would answer the question by telling that the CNIL has to work more and more in a prospective way with the service offerors so that the process of protecting data really becomes a pervasive concern. It is much more difficult than applying stricto sensu law texts relative to public filing but I think this activity shapes the future of the organization.

JLD – I would like to come back to the global aspects of these things. Among the criteria defining the research areas, there are the national and European industrial calls but there are international competitions as well. As national labs, we want to be competitive towards American or Japanese laboratories for instance, or China which goes off in many domains, like research. We would like to avoid monopolistic situations such as the ones with biometrics or video surveillance by leading competitive research in France.

MV – Another question?

Man - We talk about personal data. I was asked to confirm my presence by signing a paper when I arrived. We talk about carts and knowing what I purchase. Ethical questions are critical. With regards to information technology, we don’t really know how to set limits by preventing ourselves from investigating further in given research areas. Given techniques, politics and ethics as main parameters to be considered, the real question is perhaps not about RFID (which will be deployed and these chips will provide information about what I purchase). Why are we looking closer at Google webmail as something so interesting when incoming and outgoing messages are not safe within private servers either? All that is related to search queries and subsequent profiling activities might be a little bit more of a concern. Are not we running away from the latter by discussing RFID? Those are ethical questions to be asked. Moreover we are not at all in the same context than with biotechnologies. The means to take measures are totally dissimilar with information technology.

SL - There are several camps in this game: the government, the private companies, the citizens. I remain convinced that no solution will come from one of these three players. It might come from the government, for instance the Chinese government forced Google not to provide results for keywords like democracy. I am not sure one would like to fall into a system similar to the Chinese democracy, if I may. The fact is, politics can not be totally passive before choices. When the political decision is made, things move forward. Besides, the technology itself makes things happen. This is true with Internet and also with RFID. Developing technologies upstream, for example in Europe, by following European privacy standards, is one possible solution. As most of these technologies are developed in countries like the United States of America or Korea, where privacy has a totally different meaning, we have to face very difficult issues since privacy protection doesn’t even exist inside the technology itself. When research institutions push collaborations between technology inventors and ethicists, jurists or sociologists, we get closer to the solution. The third part of the solution belongs to each of us. I don’t think the system will be altered in the future by only one of the three ways.

JMM - Let me take another example. In computer science, for a long time, there was IBM the monster absolutely cannibalizing everything. Then came Microsoft with a fabulous business plan equipping today more than 90 or 95 percent of private person computer. Now Google has between 80 and 95 percent of the advertising market shares. Each time, for the reasons why IBM is criticized, Microsoft was and is still heavily criticized, IBM made huge losses, Microsoft is in the same losing process. Reviewing what is going on with the browser market and Internet Explorer would be enough to get convinced. Today in Europe, more than 30-40 % of customers are Firefox users; they are not Internet Explorer users anymore. I can’t see exactly how Internet Explorer will carry on its development. Internet Explorer is being lost. I don’t know how things will turn out for Google in 10 years but it is not unthinkable than Google fade away because of another company offering new services better addressing peoples’ needs and being more respectful of users. The monopolistic role of Microsoft in relation to operating systems may come to an end. The Microsoft operating systems coming along automatically with brand-new computer purchases, called compulsory sales, originated from the European trials against the company. It is well known that it is safer to run Linux instead of a Microsoft operating system given the same privacy concerns so the law project behind stopping compulsory sales would contribute in making Internet safer as well.

MM – I would like to return to the original question. I was amazed of hearing mentions about ethics, politics and techniques but nothing about rights. Given that rights should not depend on politics, at least not exclusively. Rights exist as rules applied to everybody. Data and privacy protection rights can fundamentally be split into the purpose principle and the proportionality principle. The first one is more and more flouted, as explained by JMM with the national file of genetic footprints and the extension of personal data collecting activities. The proportionality principle is still too fuzzy. When we use the flaws of proportionality such as a period of data retention as arguments in legal recourse, we are saying the length of these periods are directly proportional to the aims at stake. The purpose principle is equally inadequate, for instance, with passports, visas used in targeting foreign people, measures taken for border control, which will serve in police operations with different purposes since databases exist. The principles should be refined so that some population could be made safe. I have quoted the case of foreign people but let us talk about children. All of us were offended when we learned that 13-year-old children could be found in Edwige database. What may offend us as well when considering the French passport regulation, is how biometrics data are collected for 6-year-old children (which is not a requirement at the European level). It shows clearly how collected data can be extended and put into service for other objectives, to control other people, because young people scare (we see it with regulation law proposals about mobs). We are not here in the middle of ethical discussions of new topics without any form of consensus already made about them in the society. Let us revert to fundamental rights, this would be progress.

MV - A last question?

Woman - I would like to know what was the legal reasoning of Internet service providers, which are apparently commercial and actually accomplice of the all-in-one security trends with HADOPI in the LOPSI II law. Were not their positions during meetings meant to address these issues?

JMM -  It depends on the industry we are referring to. It is not all about the same reactions. For instance we know that Free works backwards. They launched the free wifi service access (allowing their customers to access Internet through other customers routers in wireless connections) when the HADOPI law was being discussed. When the main carriers are asked to implement some practices, they usually do it and charge the customers for doing it. Some actors of the industry like Jean Michel Planche were among the first who brought to light the issues coming with the LOPSI law and Internet filtering policies. Some individuals dare expound ideas and spread information. Most of the time, information published in the press about the government intentions come from industry leaking details when not expressing themselves ideas defending their customers. We do not have the same culture in France in comparison with the United States of America. In the USA where there is no such law like the data processing and freedom law, the fight for the customer freedoms and privacy protection is driven by the industrial. They know there is no interest for them in going against the freedom of their customers not to lose them by holding big brother-like roles. In France, the industry doenn’t maintain such policy of protecting their customers. With HADOPI, we are routed to the possibility of the filtering of Internet though professionals.

MV - IFP?

IFP - We should not end this debate on a caricature of the industry. After discussing with many of their representatives, I can stand that many of them were worried by these questions. All actors of the industry are not willing to establish security devices everywhere. There are cases when the technology provides advantages, for instance with warranty services which could be integrated in the articles we consume within RFID chips. There are industries which are sensitive to these questions. I meet with them and I think they are more and more sensitive with them as they realize it worries their consumers, it is also forming part of the sustainable development of their company reputation. It is not only theoretical. We all have this responsibility of finding a balance between security and freedom. The industry has its own role to play, which is also a positive role to be played.

MV - I ask the three of you, a few words to conclude. SL?

SL - Indeed from the collaboration of all actors may emerge the shapes of an answer.

MV - Can we rely on the rights today as a citizen when it comes to data circulation?

SL – The law tells us it is possible but we face a more complex problem when considering attentively how the law can be applied.

MV - There are obviously some vulnerabilities in the texts. MM?

MM - Again, let us return to the fundamentals and remember the Edwige case. Citizen mobilization can have a major impact in addressing other similar questions.

JMM - More and more people should stop acting paranoid and really get informed about the reality of the threats we are confronted with. The more we will look for being informed and the more we will have the right to resist.

MV - JLD?

JLD - Indeed, people should be informed so that they can have their own opinions. To make the right decisions, it is critical to master the technology, not to suffer from monopolistic situations coming with unique circumstances . I think it is important that we have a strong French and European research. Eventually I think there was interesting proposals like the creation of an ethical committee for new technologies, which is something to be widened with different actors and users.

MV - Does it exist already with nanotechnologies, SL?

SL - Something exists already with the CCNE.

MV - Thank you to all of you.

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Guests :
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin (IFP) – Vice-president of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL)
Stéphanie Lacour (SL) – CNRS researcher
Meryem Marzouki (MM) – CNRS researcher
Jean-Luc Dugelay (JLD) – EURECOM researcher
Jean-Marc Manach (JMM) - internetactu.net

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MV – SL, would you like to take the lead?

SL – Technologies move forward very quickly. I would like to keep pace with IFP when she evokes this rapid movement but we (consumers) also have to make concrete decisions regarding these technologies. Such aspects were fundamental in the enactment of the 1978 law. When we are asked our personal data, we can still freely provide an answer to gain some advantages. Today, it is still possible to acquire simple coupons with RATP. An anonymous Navigo pass is available but the acquisition cost is a little bit higher (5 €). I am not revealing a universal solution: in this case, about RFID, I think a cape has been rounded relative to what existed before (credit card, cellular phones and other individual tracking technologies) as the existence of a chip inside a Navigo pass is well known and some may be aware of carrying these devices oppositely to the ones that will be massively deployed in the close future over the mass-market and they’ll communicate data without asking for authorizations.  This constitutes a real interesting legal issue in the way the 1978 law has been submitted to new evolving needs in 2004 requiring people’s consent as a central matter of balance: I accept providing parts of my personal data in exchange of advantages and I make a personal decision. Given technologies people carry without awareness of their presence nor whether these technologies provide our data, it becomes even more difficult for us to consent.

MV - What does your survey reveal about how the new generation of individuals perceive this concept of privacy? I imagine oscillations between generations and these technologies being more easily accepted by some age groups. Would some of you like to comment about it?

JMM - We’re referring here to the privacy paradox. On one hand people are using these technologies: notably visible on the web with social networks, Facebook and the collaborative Web, where people don’t hesitate in disclosing a lot of information. I’m wondering if you’ve heard about Google and Mark L.’s personal history.  This story appeared famously hitting the headlines at the beginning of the year. This gentleman’s portrait was issued in a French magazine named “Le Tigre”. A fellow was described in his habits exclusively from what could be found on the Web. They didn’t put him naked but it was close. So many photos, videos of his travels, and stories were posted across the Web that they managed to retrace his life. We heard about it because it exhibited the propensity of people for disclosing personal data. On the other side, when the man discovered this article published among the news, he was very, very scared.  Before the article, he didn’t descry how easily these data could be aggregated - this is the privacy paradox. Mark L. expressed himself carelessly until his voice was put in such nearly official report and he got very scared. Being particularly afraid of Big Brother doesn’t prevent anyone from using these technologies (even in enforced situations as it was mentioned early). Today obtaining a passport comes with biometrics, an anonymous Navigo pass is more expensive and so on. We are more and more urged in behaving similarly. What could be the possible extensions? We don’t exactly know. I recently wrote an article entitled “Privacy, a schmuck problem”, about a comparison made by an American team between sexual revolution and what is going on with privacy. Forty years ago, women could not wear miniskirts without being accused of incitement to rape and declaring homosexuality would provoke someone’s face smashing. Mentalities are not the same anymore. Some laws were voted. Activism led to wearing miniskirts without being indicted for incitement and telling one’s homosexuality doesn’t necessarily imply someone’s rage.

MV – Are we at a disinhibited digital stage?

JMM - What has to be clarified relates to the part of control we’ll keep for ourselves over the network. Would all this data be rendered available to merchants, policemen, public services and administration and would not there be any pending transformation of some Big Brother-like self-censored totalitarian system kinds. This is a real political issue.

MV – Do you agree? We’ll listen to your opinions and then we’ll take another question.

SL – I’m a course instructor and conference presenter on these topics: privacy protection on the Web, traceability of individuals. When I start a new course, I am generally seen as a schmuck in front of the students. They stare at me wondering what I could tell them? Things like the Internet is dangerous, especially with all the pedophiles around. By the time I close a course, students come to me and say they will terminate their Facebook profile. In general, I explain to them that it is already too late. However this effort to inform is very fruitful. People strongly react against the Edwidge file. Young people are currently no more ready than aged people to let recruiters find photos of them drunk while they run as a candidate for a job. They don’t accept it better than people of the previous generation. It is this effort where the CNIL is concentraing. It has preserved a worthwhile policy concerning traces for years and the CNIL is not the only relay. In my opinion, this information has to be loudly broadcasted.

MV - MM then JLD.

MM – I would like to return to the comparison made with the living. The CCNE gave two outstanding judgements, the first for biometrics and RFID and the second for using DNA. The DNA ruling was for paternity tests when they were introduced in the 2007 law. About facing long term problems with research projects, it has to be underlined that these projects have clauses. It started with parity between partners working on European projects. There had to be as many women working on the projects as men. Beyond these immediate palliative measures, the consent appears. Knowing if the consent is free overpasses communicating about it. And the consent is not free, not for administration nor for police filing. It is not free either for private filing. I don’t really agree with the parallel made between sexual revolution and privacy on the Web as sociologists proved the existence of a great mastership of Facebook users for their data. They are not young children but young active people (about thirty) who want to exhibit themselves by having a clear conscience. Let us return to the first TV reality show (Loft Story), we heard of it equally in the news. There were lots of exhibitions. The social consent existing behind it is the commodification of bodies and intimacy. With the living, there are debates about surrogacy. We apprehend this commodification. We can fully understand it and we can have arguments about selling a belly. I don’t ask any question now but I ask the following ones to my students. Who doesn’t use a free mailing box (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail whatever)? Who doesn’t use free services? Who ever rejected giving away some personal data to take advantage of a service? One immediately receives the benefits of services while providing few details of oneself. The consciousness raising of the data collection, the possible interconnections and resulting portraiture comes later. Different reaction periods are at stake. In 1996, I offered already a solution commented as soft insanity. The fundamental question is: Can we make people happy without their consent? If we can, then we should think of an “holification” of personal data and intimacy. We are not talking about vital data but patrimonial and geolocalization data, with bodies taken as identities with their biometrics and DNA. This is very close to debates occurring with the living and body intimacy might be an argument to forbid collecting and processing some personal data even with consent.

MV - Could not we equally compare GMO with nanotechnologies? JLD, IFP and the public then.

JLD – Just a quick idea, specific clauses appeared in multimedia for disabled people so that they can access the services. We have to abide by some terms. There are cogitations in European projects with ethics committees delivering recommendations, which are sometimes a bit surprising. We have a program extracting the largest amount of information possible from a face, like age, eye color, etc… We were asked not to discriminate men from women as it was considered as not acceptable by a committee.  As a result, we didn’t work it.

MV – IFP?

IFP – I believe this concept of personal data has completely evolved. It was absolute before (protected by the 1978 law) and now it is subject to negotiation. There is a big difference today and in the way we are now referring to the capital of personal data dwelling around all of us. This approach is closely a proprietary one. Some even say they are owners of such data, and whether there is consent or not,  they should be able to do whatever they want with it. We recognize the debate of the human body: if there is consent, then we should be able to lease a belly. Some can not cut one’s harm but… We know that laws about reproduction cared for by the state, and bodies not belonging to anybody (in France) were constructed against this on behalf of higher principles. I wonder if personal data are about to be added to one’s patrimonies, since they belong of course to our intimacy. Should not we be reacting here? There are worries welling up in the polls: the first fear concerns personal data. There is confusedly something. At the same time, it doesn’t prevent them from consuming services. Some of us will wake up soon or later. Should not there be a stronger corpus of renovated and unalterable principles of privacy by letting individuals make separate choices, not just one for everything?

MV – Sir?

Man - Hello, I’m a member of the organization “Democracy and Freedom” objecting to the plan of camcorder installation in Paris. I would like to return to the technological argument. Video surveillance is clearly feeding a race for progress as we have heard with Mr. JLD. It is all about a sequel of new devices bearing the lacks of previous devices.

JLD – You see it as if applications were driving researc,h but it is not always true. We want to progress in image analysis. It is our first goal then that this analysis can serve different purposes (medical imagery, video surveillance etc.). We naturally talk about biometrics and video surveillance today but the first goal of most of researchers is not about improving specific applications. We are willing to improve audio, video and signal processing. I believe there is a little misunderstanding at this level.

Man – The problem is that technological arguments are provided by the chief constable, for instance, emphasizing the old systems obsolescence and inputs of the new devices. As I follow news about camcords, I found a funny picture of a policeman from the 60s with his stick and cape. We moved to analog camcords. As they were inefficient, we moved to digital camcords which are magnificent.

JLD – Video surveillance didn’t trigger the digital revolution. We moved from analog devices to digital devices for many reasons.

Man – Well, I want to express your participation to be a headlong rush. When talking about digital camcords, you said while someone is moving, it is difficult to see his face and a facial technology has to be developed as a compensation and so on. The next argument could be skin color and ethnical statistics from videos. We clearly discern an unstoppable dynamic here. Technology is seen as a solution, but not humans?

JLD – This discussion is very interesting, but we can get pretty far that way. For each technological progress, there are new issues (positive, and negative ones as well). I agree with you. What should we do then? Should we end research? It is a society problem.

MV – SL.

SL – I understand the argument of headlong rush. However I don’t think technologies are the main arguments of politics. For videosurveillance, we know camcords of the market are not satisfying, for instance in terms of individual spotting. Technology doesn’t tell the chief constable that what exists today will work to find Mr. X on the street Y because he attacked Mr. Z, and it won’t prevent the political decision. It is exactly the same with RFID, consisting in telling the citizens they’re taken care of and their privacy is as well. The RFID chips can be disabled, but there is a big advantage for them as consumers at check out time. The big benefit for supermarkets is about making logistical decisions and profiling consumers in real time. The benefits are a little bit unbalanced, but let us assume people can check out more quickly. Public powers aware of privacy issues could impose requirements where the chips are disabled after checkout. In the present state of things, the government has already authorized the RFID deployment over the market, but the technology can not guarantee these tags being disabled after checkout. The only way how to really disable a tag after checkout consists in breaking it.

MV – JMM.

JMM – I take the example of a company called Visiowave created by Swiss students. They wanted to carry TV on the Internet. Image compression algorithms were developed. In 2001, the dot-com bubble burst and they wondered how to earn some money. They started to think of smart closed-circuit television. Visiowave was bought by TF1 and it is quite funny that TF1 might become the world’s number one smart television channel. Since then it was sold to General Electric. I’m talking about it because Visiowave is the system sold to RATP to equip buses. What was TV became videosurveillance and might return to TV with an inverted channel (news broadcasted in buses). The same system deals with videosurveillance and advertising. There is indeed a headlong rush with these technologies creating usages depending on the market needs. Some researchers are trying various experiments and we wonder what to do with the results. By meeting the CNIL people, I notice they are facing similar issues. Technology progresses fast and the political choices in terms of regulation affects what is related to security or emotions (to get elected again) instead of willing to be efficient. Don’t we go to far? Isn’t it too dangerous? Is it too late for the politics when they start snatching at these questions?

MV – Sir, good night, a new question?

Man – My questioning concerns the company Google. Today, thanks to their free accounts, we can take advantage very easily of emails and standard searches. A panel of services, such as the calendar application, allows them to know where we are and when. Advertising is contextual. Youtube allows them to know what we watched. Google books provide them with information about what we read…

MV – What is your question?

Man – What matters the most thanks to the analytics part is that even sites consulted directly without using Google search engine, are related to logs taking advantage of google accounts if a session has been opened. What do you think of the behaviour of this company which claims today keeping “don’t be evil” as a motto?

Man – My question is closely related to your last topic, perhaps a little bit provocative : there are politics, technics and ethics. There are ethics committees, decision makers handle politics and technicians determine what can be implemented. From what you have said since the debate started, we are quite far from responding to every ethical issues raised by new technologies. We can focus on epiphenomena but in general all of us are controlled in different ways. Mobile phone usage makes locating anybody at any time possible. I don’t see how this could be prevented. Besides, even when they can be prevented, nothing is done. For instance, I don’t know what the current status of social filing is but I don’t see it as overused…
JMM – Ten interconnections between social databases were made last year.
Man – Yes, exactly and each database has to be a social database since it contains data about individuals. I don’t know if any policeman at any police station can get access to any piece of information about anybody.

MV – Respecting ethics, JLD, you are a researcher designing new technologies. You can probably explain to us in few words what you do with faces in biometrics.
JLD – We try to integrate dynamic parameters with faces. Today, facial representation works well if camerawork is kept relatively simple (frontal, good lighting conditions etc.), which is rarely the case when people are walking along a corridor… To improve the “scoring”, we add the dynamic facial parameters, the way how one smiles, the way how one talks… combined with gaits.
MV – So, you design these instruments?
JLD – We try to get rid of these locks then…
MV – You are quibbling… You design these machines serving security and surveillance.
JLD – I don’t have such a vision. I am maybe a little bit naive as I am a scientist.
MV – I’m not blaming you… It is a fact.
JLD – I don’t have such a negative picture in mind.
MV – It’s not negative…
JLD – I find all these questions very interesting as we need to raise the possible negative aspects and I am entirely fine with it. It is great that there are people for doing it. However I see also positive aspects. About RATP, I think they do really want to improve security. Customers are asking for it, customers who are taking the RER (the transit system) everyday in the suburbs wish rightly or wrongly more security.

MV – Perhaps we will return to the perception of security a bit later. Do you, as a researcher, feel concerned about ethics and when does one start wondering about the related issues?
JLD – Rather quickly as…
MV – Basically, it may look a bit like Einstein inventing the nuclear weapon and then…
JLD – No, no… First of all, I am here for discussion. Researchers are used to discussions with other people and it is very nice. The ANR (the National Research Agency) encourages us in working with people from other areas, which we do willingly. We ask ourselves questions as citizens as well but there are different levels. Research depends on mathematical foundations, signal processing etc. which is rather independent from applications. I’m providing you with a single instance: we examine faces to recognize skin colors. There are equal requests from people developing virtual makeup software and those who want to retrieve someone’s ethnic origins. From a mathematical approach, both these requests are nearly the same. This is just an example enlightening how ambiguous research can be and how different the applications are.
MV – MM?
MM – I come to rescue my colleague, a computer scientist who risks being the bad guy in this debate.
MV – Not at all!
MM – As you referred to the ANR, we need to realize that we are aiming at more and more contracting activities in research areas. If we want simply to conduct our research with scientific goals, we have to submit our projects with the nice phrasing so to say that it can be immediately useful, for technics in security, for biometrics, for improving video surveillance, for making it smarter and then it works. We get money for conducting our research and if we don’t do this, we don’t get the money. The problem remains upstream. Above all in the following areas: in computer science, in micro electronics, in nanoelectronics now, we are forced to promote public-private cooperation, otherwise nothing is done and we fold our arms (and I say we for solidarity even if I am not in this area anymore). We fold our arms, we can not lead projects, we can not take Ph.Ds. All this makes sense and it’s comforting. I have seen myself, projects submitted to the ANR involving a partnership with the gendarmerie for experimenting filtering technics. These projects are always submitted by taking into account the best objectives in the world, for our old people not losing themselves on the bus, for producing makeup as white skins won’t react the way how coloured skins would – nevertheless there is ethnic profiling behind it. Biometrics resellers vindicate buying their products with the best arguments: for instance, on asian and african markets for improving transparency and democracy during election periods since there are no well-structured vital statistics in these countries and there is not really any voter register. So we always have the best arguments, but the root of the problem is not related to this or that technique.  Though each technique has to be investigated properly, it resides in massive, systematic usage of these techniques and their interconnections. This is where problems are originate.

MV – Short answer to take another question.
JMM – Another instance comes with the GIXEL (Electronics Industrial Group). A few years ago, a blue paper informing about what had to be done for developing the industry, was addressed to the government. According to this paper, people are scared by video surveillance technologies, biometrics, RFID and control technologies. People see “Big Brother” when told about them and this act as a brake on their business. It was explicitely written that, to develop their industry, we had to deploy RFID, biometrics and video surveillance devices with kindergartens and nurseries, so that parents and children can get used to these technologies, would stop seeing “big brother” and not to be scared anymore. When this was pointed out at one of the Big Brother Awards sessions, the blue paper was published again, with the sensitive parts removed. This is one of the issues industrials are confronted with and how they try to infiltrate into our minds. Since then, we have seen nurseries with biometrics devices…
MV – There are also these wristbands in maternities…
JMM – There are now RFID wristbands, supposedly preventing kidnapping.
MV – We’re are in the same field…
IFP – I would like to answer the question, which appears absolutely fundamental to me. In the background, we notice the rise of the technologies and we wonder what can be done. I think the situation is very different from the one we had in 1978 when the CNIL was founded. In some way, everything was quite simple in 1978. There were large scary public files. The CNIL was mainly established for controlling these files. Today the “threat” is totally decentralized. There are still these public files. M. Manach told us they keep expanding. Moreover there is personal information everywhere which are not even put together as files (this is the newest part) but are available. Each of us even offers it. The processing tools help in making scripts out of them. This is how these kind of smaller files are formed. We understand intuitively the solution has to be different. The CNIL as a regulator has to adapt and this adaptation is on its way since 2004.  But the global chain has to follow the same logic. That’s why I was insisting on individuals having a role to play in terms or personal data protection and companies as well. Each link of the chain has to play a role in terms of the security-freedom balance.
MV – We are going to develop the topic with chip usage inside companies. JLD, a few words and another question.

JLD – I agree with the fact that Europe, and France in particular, deliver invitations to tender and organize research. They influence decisions as they launch proposal invitations, but sometimes we reply to invitations which are not really expected and we suggest our own projects. For instance, I’m strongly interested in system reliability and I think it is crucial showing to the general public that systems are not one hundred percent reliable. Thalès played the game with a project aimed at demonstrating that impostures can lead to vulnerabilities in some biometric systems and soon we are going to receive the answer to our proposal.
Man – The question is about knowing where we are aiming.  And since technologies are moving very fast, we need to look upstream but nothing plays the role of the ethics committee (CCNE) in biological science, for instance when it comes to computer science. The CNIL has a regulating role and it has nothing to do with what the CCNE does. This comparison with Science of Living is relevant to us as there are technologies we didn’t want to develop. We said by thinking upstream, we don’t want reproductive human cloning. We stop research tending to point in this direction. Is there anything equivalent in Computer Science to a technology we would not like to develop?  Though without thinking ahead, industrials would shape it and there would be calls for proposal. To me, the facial recognition can be compared to the artificial uterus: this is something which will radically change security in our society and individual freedom. It is not perfectly running but there is money for funding it. It means there was not the same thinking upstream that one can find in biological science.

MV – Sir, did you have a question?

Man – What I would like to touch on, is not really a question but a topic: the human traceability inside Paris. It would be related to automated identification with RFID and biometrics.

MV – SL, isn’t it a topic you’re interested in?

SL – Indeed, this matters a lot to me. This kind of device, like a RFID chip in a biometric passport, comes from security needs. Since the 2001 attacks, it’s clearly all about protecting our countries from international terrorism so security measures are strengthened, particularly concerning our ids and at the borders. Does cropping our privacy guarantee our safety? There are very generic answers, clever surveys from philosophers, etc. about this issue. I’m not getting further into it but basically what we encounter very quickly is that these devices that are supposed to bring us safety are producing security risks. For instance, this is especially flagrant with RFID chips within passports. There are endless security issues, which means we don’t know how to secure these electronic devices properly. These issues exist because of lots of technical reasons and economic reasons as well. The technology is not mature enough presently for offering a satisfying result. On this point, we could accept the situation, as traveling documents have never really been fully secure even when it was only about a piece of paper. Convincing oneself about it would just require checking out how often the formats of such documents are renewed, for adding additional security assets. In this current configuration, we are forcing the introduction of a device which encompasses vulnerabilities and we don’t necessarily look for how to fix them because these agreements made about adding RFID chips in passports are agreements made at an international level and the United States of America was not insisting on a satisfying level of security. Another reason is that adequate investments in cryptology were not accepted. Such investment would have enabled securing these passports, or securing them further anyway. All this might look circumstantial, but the truth is that offering security means at the expense of security itself, is still annoying.

Woman – Excuse-me, just a short question… What exactly do you call vulnerability?

SL – Well, I’m going to provide you with a basic example with regards along with passports: two or three months ago, Elvis Presley crossed the Netherlands border.

JMM – I have another instance: two years ago, computer scientists created a bomb prototype which explodes exclusively nearby American passports. If you’re American and you’ve got the passport, the bomb explodes, if you’re not and you don’t own such passport, nothing happens.

MV – IFP, what about about RFID chips as we’re referring to it in the frame of Paris, as our guest was probably thinking of the Navigo pass and the occasions we have of using it?  What does the CNIL say about the data which are embedded in these chips?

IFP – Before talking about RFID I just would like to react in relation to the passports and to confirm that all discussions we have about them are not national. Of course, some decisions of standardization were taken at the international level and France had to take part in these discussions and to adapt its own (transport) titles. We made choices which are more maximalist than the ones made on the international scene, which is absolutely true but every country is heading to this kind of traveling documents. On another hand, in response to SL, I would like to mention that the market is not only originated by the state. There is a global market, there is a market of fear and technologies are there to respond to this market. All of us (individuals, states, companies) are accomplices of this market. Here is an example: the CNIL was recently seized about an organization taking care of disabled seniors with extremely reduced mobility. There is a bus picking up these people and some of them lose themselves because of being disoriented. Their families asked us about providing them with electronic tagging, instead of employing someone who would make sure each individual gets off the bus exactly at the place where he or she is supposed to. As things are kept simple this way, without worries, we would be automatically warned each time something would go wrong, each time someone would accidentally leave a perimeter of movement. We must realize, all of us are sustaining this market one way or another from our different fears. As a result, if in our opinion this market is too broad, we all (and the state particularly) have to assess our real needs about RFID.

MV - At the local level…

IFP – At the local level, of course, the CNIL is extremely vigilant relatively to this new technology allowing smart labeling. We might find it anywhere. It would allow theoretically any item communicating with you. You are in the street, you go before a poster and this poster sends you a message onto your phone asking you if you’d like to receive an advertisement or you walk before a shop, a chain store, you receive a short message and you might be interested in opting in for some services since you might get some discount in this shop… These technologies are obviously attractive for the general public. The CNIL doesn’t have a general solution for RFID but case-by-case answers depending on the variety of existing applications.

MV -Fine! We are about to see what is linked to citizen rights with SL concerning personal data in this chips. JMM, you had a reaction to share before moving forward with the next question?

JMM -About traceability at the level of Paris, there are camcords but they are not “smart” currently, not in the public area, at least. They are not paired with software capable of individual identification. But the RATP (Autonomous Operator of Parisian Transports) also has camcords belonging to its realm including buses, that are connected to a face recognition system, which is officially not activated yet. When will they activate it? Will they activate it? I don’t know. Anyway, you were referring earlier to the state of the art in terms of biometric recognition with video surveillance. It is not perfect yet. There are still many failures but many researchers are working on it. The other issue consists in the RFID chip contained in the Navigo pass which was imposed on everybody without any explanation. As a journalist, I was wondering why and I never received any answer. Nobody is telling why it was enforced. The Navigo pass stores the three last distances you have traveled. The data are deleted after 48 hours or 24 hours whereas the CNIL permits keeping them for 3 days at most. Each time the CNIL asks for some data on behalf of the police, the RATP needs an approval from a rogatory commission. The time needed to transfer this approval lets the data be deleted. Therefore, officially the RATP cannot reply positively to any police request. Today the infrastructure exists and it is all about making decisions for more traceability, keeping the data longer, activating the smart video surveillance systems and transforming the public RATP area into an even more totalitarian sphere. I said it is just about making decisions as the FNEG (National DNA File) was originally created for fighting against multi-recidivist sexual criminals and pedophiles, highly violent people. In few years, this file was extended to nearly all the crimes and derelicts. I believe that there are presently 125 or 135 crimes or derelicts which are concerned with the FNEG. So few years are enough for extending something dedicated to multi-recidivist criminals to the entire population. Maybe a particularly odious crime in the RATP area would trigger the activation of the smart video surveillance system and the traceability of anybody. It’s perhaps a political decision which might come from a news item and it depends also on the business. It’s a bit expensive. The technology is already inside the RATP anyway.

Guests :
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin (IFP) – Vice-president of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL)
Stéphanie Lacour (SL) – CNRS researcher
Meryem Marzouki (MM) – CNRS researcher
Jean-Luc Dugelay (JLD) – EURECOM researcher
Jean-Marc Manach (JMM) - internetactu.net

MV – Are there topics you are particularly interested since the scope is extremely large ?

Woman in audience - I would like to know about the “1000 camcorders in Paris” project (actually concerning 1226 camcorders in Paris implanted in addition to the ones already deployed today).
Is it possible for the CNIL to self-refer on this issue and call the government and the Paris Town Hall? We know the latter approved the project which is very expensive and poorly efficient. At least, this kind of information circulates at the League of Human Rights. Furthermore, do we have figures about financial fallout for companies offering these technologies, not only the political benefits but also the economic benefits for all these companies?

MM – So IFP, on behalf of the CNIL:

IFP – Indeed these surveillance devices are literally blowing up (confirmed by the referral of CNIL statistics). The CNIL is only competent for a subset of them, located in private areas (in this case, probably not those pointed out), or using biometrics and processing techniques justifying the CNIL mediation. Regarding the surveillance devices on public thoroughfares, the law of 1995 states a prefectural authorization is required to set up the devices making the global legal architecture quite opaque in the eyes of the citizens. As many of them direct apprehensions to the CNIL about video surveillance and video protection, the institution made a proposal to the government for reconsidering these questions, providing with more transparency and strengthening legal inspections as the CNIL today does not have the authority for regulating the prefectural devices.

MV – Are there business figures about these technologies? We are not going to give them in detail as doing so would be tedious. However we know very well for instance how the biometrics market pays today. Who would like to give us an answer here?

MV – MM ?

MM – Today (2009) relatively to biometrics apart from DNA (as DNA analysis constitutes another market), the market raises $3.5B and the predictions from an international group of industrials and consultants are around $9.5B in 2014. Even more important than the figures, I’d like to specify which are the sectors draining the market. At the international level, then at the european level and eventually at an operational level in France and elsewhere, we notice a market structured by the government decisions on account of the biometric passport adoption. Opting for biometric id projects will organize the market. Choosing a biometric identifier like the facial recognition (digitized faces) is forming part of the process but also at the international level is brought up the question of picking out fingerprints or eye iris scan as a second identifier. Why does it put up political and economic issues? Simply because of the nature of the world leader in fingerprint technology, our industrial champion: the Sagem Défense Sécurité group. Who was the owner of the patents over the eye iris scan at the time of these discussions held since 2002 in the middle of INTERPOL meetings? Anglo-saxon companies. Consequently, during an INTERPOL meeting in lyon, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was the Minister of the Interior, declared “the fingerprint technology is the French tradition, we are going to keep this technology” (quoted in the press). France and Germany were pro-fingerprint technology and the United Kingdom, in connection with the U.S.A., was in favor of the eye iris scan. These sectors are the ones draining the market.

MV – The tradition following the industry.

Summary of the debate “Sécurité ou Vie Privée ?” (ed: Security or Private Life) moderated by Mathieu Vidard (MV)

“Security or Privacy?”
- Do we have a choice any longer?-

Guests :
Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin (IFP) – Vice-president of the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL)
Stéphanie Lacour (SL) – CNRS researcher
Meryem Marzouki (MM) – CNRS researcher
Jean-Luc Dugelay (JLD) – EURECOM researcher
Jean-Marc Manach (JMM) - internetactu.net

MV to IFP – What is the role of the CNIL?
IFP – The CNIL plays a critical role in protecting individual freedoms in the digital world. The CNIL was founded in 1978. At that time, files already existed, in particular in administrative offices and nobody really knew how they were put together. As a result some worries started to surface in France especially when the “Plan Calcul” (ed: Calcutta Plan) was launched and the idea of a unique identifier per individual working across all administrative department emerged. The creation of the CNIL appeared as an answer to these worries. It represents the first French step for setting rights over administrative files. In 2004, the law enacting the foundation of the CNIL was severely amended. This reform substantially altered the role of regulator owned by the CNIL. What is crucial to understand is that such role has to be completed by the commitment of individuals and companies.
MV to IFP – So first of all, your role is about informing people, checking, regulating and taking measures.
IFP – Absolutely, this penalization capability has been granted to the CNIL in 2004 since the Commission can decide economic sanctions against personal data processing which don’t abide by the law of 1978. Besides, the educational role is more and more important as they are files anywhere. There are public files but also a proliferating set of private files.
As opposed to the year of 1978 when 90% of the CNIL activity was about public files, today 90% of its activity is related to private files.
MV to MM – Myriam Marzouki, may I ask you to introduce the IRIS organization?
MM – IRIS means Imagine a Solidary Internet Network. The organization exists since 1996. We’re defending and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms within IT-related activities and networks. To go on from the statement of IFP, the CNIL was founded after the very first public scandal concerning files in France. The second public scandal of the nearly same intensity came last year (2008) with the Edwige files project and thanks to a very strong citizen mobilization (around 2000 organizations) the project was withdrawn so far. And now we’re about dealing with other proposals and law projects.
MV to SL – Stéphanie Lacour, which are the technologies on top of which you are driving today your research?
SL - I am inclined to think that the topic we are discussing: Security versus Privacy is difficult to consider in very general terms, at least in my opinion it is, so I try to address it under the perspective of specific technologies and I am interested in seeing how these very material technologies (chips, nanotechnologies) impact privacy protection and the conservation of a balance established by the law of 1978 between data security, privacy protection and other imperatives such as economic or public ones. I focus on these challenges in terms of new technologies or given technologies in particular.
MM - We will talk about the citizen rights in regards to the circulating data in Navigo pass for instance. JLD, could you please do the same thing, quickly introducing EURECOM (Nice).
What kind of research do you conduct?
JLD – EURECOM is a school founded in 1991 with a heavy international call. The organization comprehend an economic interest group with an industrial department and educational department. Our research activities touch mobiles, multimedia, security, networks, new technologies in general. I am a specialist in image processing for security technologies such as digital tattoos, biometrics and video surveillance. Our goal consists in unlocking technologies to make progress in these fields.
MM - Finally, Jean-Marc Manach, what are your expectations as a journalist and blogger
JMM – I’m actually forming part of a group called Big Brother Awards, rewarding those who shine in impairing privacy or promoting surveillance. For ten years, we have been documenting year by year, the most protruding projects, law projects, technologies or companies and I mostly agree with what was said before namely it is quite uneasy to encompass this problem of security relatively to privacy in a large way as it is fuzzy. Nonetheless I can tell that the law of 1978 was adopted after an exposure in connection with police files called Safari Files, hub of every French administrative files. Today and since the adoption of the law of 2004, the police filing activity got dramatically bigger. Within three years there was a 70% positive increase in police filing activity. Even “Informatique et Libertés” (ed: Information Liberty) laws and the CNIL doesn’t prevent police filing from persisting though last year something that happened along with Edwige.
On the other side, administrative files are interconnected. There is more and more interconnected social files. At the technology level, more and more scientists are working on using biometrics, video surveillance, RFID chips and nanotechnologies for security purposes, marketing (like they say to improve customer relationship) or creating fun things to manage playing down these monitoring technologies, which are a bit scary, so that it can be massively sold out. We should not forget that all security technologies are intertwined with prosperous markets and business, which doesn’t really suffer from crisis.
MM - Ok, I think it is nice introducing what you do in detail. Are there already some questions?