A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #336 - Big Brother 336 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

After months of struggle, the La Quadrature du Net association succeeded 
in obtaining the source code of the algorithm used by the CNAF to 
control beneficiaries. It reveals that, as we might have suspected, the 
most precarious are targeted. At the National Family Allowance Fund 
(CNAF), where the search for declaration errors and fraud has become 
industrialized in recent years, a tool has been erected as a totem: Data 
mining. The prioritization of files to be checked today relies almost 
exclusively on a "risk score" calculated for each beneficiary according 
to a battery of personal criteria. This algorithm uses personal 
characteristics of beneficiaries, some of them discriminatory, in order 
to assign them a risk of fraud...
At CAF, data mining has been tested since 2004, in the local banks of 
Dijon and Bordeaux. Its use was generalized in 2010 throughout the 
territory, in a political context marked by the hunt for social fraud by 
a certain Nicolas Sarkozy who had set up, once elected, a national 
delegation to fight against fraud.! For the CNAF, it was a question of 
determining the profiles of beneficiaries most likely to have committed 
irregularities in their declarations. To do this, the CNAF launched a 
gigantic life-size test: it sent its 700 controllers to the homes of 
7,000 randomly selected beneficiaries to check their situation in 
detail. Then statisticians became interested in the common 
characteristics of cases leading to claims for sums paid wrongly (the 
famous "overpayments"). They looked for correlations with the numerous 
data they have on the faulty beneficiaries! Based on these findings, the 
organization chose around forty criteria to which it assigned risk 
coefficients. This system allows it to automatically assign each 
beneficiary a score ranging from 0 to 1, by drawing on their personal 
data. The higher this score, the higher the chances of undergoing a home 
inspection. This targeting method detecting more irregularities than 
random checks quickly established itself: in a few years, data mining 
became the primary trigger for home checks (around 70% in 2021).
The risk score is mainly calculated based on criteria relating to the 
composition of the household, its resources or the professional 
situation of its members. Additionally, a handful of these criteria can 
drastically vary the risk score. The controls therefore target typical 
profiles, based on criteria that the declarants do not understand, 
rather than suspicious behavior or inconsistent situations, as the CNAF 
claims.
Even more troubling, the algorithm uses elements linked to the family 
situation of recipients, the age of household members, economic 
vulnerability or disability. Among the criteria that increase the risk 
score, we find for example: having a spouse over 60 years old; having a 
child over 12 years old in the household; being recently divorced, 
widowed or separated; having income below a certain threshold (942 euros 
for a single person); the fact of being a beneficiary of the disabled 
adult allowance (AAH)... The use of these characteristics is in 
principle prohibited by French and European legislation as being 
discriminatory. The CNAF rejects the accusation of discrimination, 
ensuring that it only operates on statistical grounds.
She also maintains a double discourse on the purpose of her algorithm. 
Officially, data mining only searches for declarative errors and not 
intentional fraud, whether these errors are in favor or against 
beneficiaries. But in the end the CNAF claimed, for example, 985 million 
euros in overpayments from beneficiaries in 2022 compared to only 378 
million in rights not wrongly paid.
La Quadrature du Net denounces, for its part, other organizations such 
as Pôle emploi, Urssaf, old age insurance, agricultural social mutuals 
or, to a lesser extent, health insurance, which are developing the same 
type algorithms "which meet the same objectives and which will generally 
target the same audiences".
Sources: The quadrature of the net, the world, mediapart

In France, we do not know how many identity checks are carried out by 
the police each year, nor what they are used for. And given the low 
degree of supervision exercised over these controls, we also do not know 
whether they are carried out properly.
The rights defender, Claire Hédon, contacted the Court of Auditors, 
which investigated and made its report public on December 6. After a 
series of interviews and trips, coupled with the analysis of official 
data, the Court of Auditors can only provide approximate answers to 
simple questions.
Despite the "central place" of identity checks in the daily work of the 
police and gendarmerie, the Court of Auditors notes that "the security 
forces have not given themselves the means to exhaustively list the 
checks carried out nor to understand the reasons and analyze the 
results. This situation is all the more surprising given that the 
practice of identity checks has been the subject of a long-standing 
debate in public opinion."
No statistical tool allows us to know how many identity checks are 
carried out each year in France. From "partial and unreliable sources" 
which require caution, the Court of Auditors arrives at a numerical 
estimate of this practice "which is both massive and poorly measured": 
47 million checks in 2021, "i.e. on average 9 checks per patrol and per day.
"The national gendarmerie checked around 20 million people, including 
8.3 million during road checks. The national police carried out around 
27 million identity checks in the same year, including 6.6 million road 
checks.» The report calls on the Ministry of the Interior to set up "an 
exhaustive census" which appears "indispensable" to measure and analyze 
the phenomenon.
In the field, agents benefit from a large margin of maneuver in the 
decision to carry out an identity check as well as in its conduct. They 
are also the only ones to decide whether the situation requires carrying 
out a security pat-down on the person being checked or consulting the 
national police and gendarmerie files (such as the Wanted Persons File) 
to see if their name appears there.
The Court of Auditors notes that these acts complementary to control, 
which are not obligatory, are in the process of being "generalized". 
Even diverted from their purpose. "Security searches are sometimes 
carried out to look for offenses", such as the possession of drugs, the 
Court even notes. According to the Internal Security Code, pat-downs are 
exclusively intended to check whether the person is carrying a dangerous 
object, for them or for others (such as a knife).
Roadside checks, for their part, are characterized by "the total 
latitude enjoyed by police officers and gendarmes in the choice of 
drivers to be checked, independently of any behavioral criteria".
As for facial checks, the Court of Auditors is as timid as the Council 
of State. Indeed, in France ethnic statistics are prohibited!
Sources: Médiapart.fr

From November 14 to 17, the MILIPOL exhibition was held near Paris (see 
CA 335 under this section),
An Amnesty International team walked through the lounge and identified 
"illegal law enforcement weapons as well as equipment considered 
prohibited by the UN rapporteur on torture."
Among these barbaric tools, "direct contact electric batons, electric 
pulse gloves, ammunition containing several kinetic projectiles, 
multi-barrel launchers..."
So many innovations aimed at state violence which are exposed "by 
American, Chinese, Czech, French, Israeli, Italian, Kazakh, South Korean 
companies".
In principle, since 2006, the European Union has banned the export of 
certain repressive equipment "under the EU anti-torture regulation". In 
2019, these Regulations were strengthened, prohibiting "the promotion 
and exhibition of this material at trade shows", such as MILIPOL. These 
rules are absolutely not enforced. Moreover, the very notion of 
"torture" is vague.
When the French police shoot rubber bullets in the faces of human 
beings, it is torture. When the gendarmerie sends thousands of explosive 
grenades at environmentalists, causing mutilations and comas, that is 
also torture. Likewise when officers discharge electrical impulses 
several times into the body of an arrested person.
"Unlike conventional weapons, there are no legally binding global rules 
governing the production and trade of law enforcement equipment," says 
Amnesty. Let us remember here that Tasers or LBDs used in France are lethal.

Source: amnesty.fr

In a decision of November 16, the Council censored the remote activation 
of mobile phones for the capture of sounds and images because it was 
likely to cause a particularly serious attack on the right to respect 
for private life.
On the other hand, the Constitutional Council judges that "the remote 
activation of electronic devices for geolocation purposes does not 
disregard the right to respect for private life".
Furthermore, the Constitutional Council partially censors and limits 
interpretation reservations to the provisions concerning the use of 
videoconferencing in the context of various judicial procedures.
Source: lemonde.fr

This emblematic Parisian store, owned by LVMH, reopened in June 2021 
after 16 years of closure due to enormous work. This change was 
inaugurated by Bernard Arnault alongside a certain Macron. As soon as it 
reopened, the makeup sellers reported harmful management, one of them 
also filed a complaint against the Samaritaine for "complicity in moral 
harassment at work". Black logistics agents also had to endure openly 
racist remarks from a manager, still in place at the end of 2023.
There are mainly cameras at the Samaritaine as the store and the 
basement are gridded. More than a thousand cameras are distributed 
throughout the store, all declared according to management.
At the end of August 2023, 3 employees discovered cameras hidden in 
smoke detectors on the floor (-2) intended to monitor employees and 
certainly film access to the union premises occupied by the CGT. 
Scandal! The cameras didn't stay in place for long. The day after their 
discovery, the employees of the second basement were summoned to the 
fourth floor, in the management offices. "They don't really understand 
what they're doing there. It lasts half an hour, we talk to them about 
bonuses, relates the CGT union representative of La Samaritaine. When 
they come back down, all the fake detectors are gone. They call me and 
say: "That's it, they cleaned up." On the walls, only the bases and the 
tapes remain. A few days later, some of the store's managers went down 
to "–2". The director, accompanied by the security manager, tries to 
reassure the teams. "They assured us that what was being said in the 
corridors was fabrications. They promised that they had not filmed us 
and claimed that they were simply carrying out tests," recalls an employee.
Two memory cards taken from spy cameras are now in the hands of the CGT 
trade federation
Source: Médiapart.fr

At the end of November and beginning of December, a series of 
conferences, workshops and concerts were held as part of an anti-fascist 
week in Lyon. On December 2 and 3, interventions by activists and 
authors around state violence and police repression were to take place 
in Villeurbanne. The Rhône prefecture has issued an order to prohibit 
weekend meetings and discussions on the grounds of alleged disturbances 
of public order. The prefectural decree targeted in particular the 
"Abolir the Police" workshop of the Matsuda collective, which provides 
remarkable work on police abolitionism.
Meanwhile in Brittany, near Saint-Malo, around thirty plates from the 
comic strip "Koko doesn't like capitalism" were exhibited during the 
Quai des Bulles festival. "A spotlight" for the illustrations of the 
artist Tienstiens in various public places in the city. The comic has 
sold more than 20,000 copies. While the exhibition was to end on Sunday 
November 26, an article from France 3 specified that the boards had been 
taken down on November 17 because municipal police officers considered 
two panels by the designer particularly shocking. In the line of sight, 
a sketch representing choristers singing the anthem of radical 
activists: "Everyone / Hates the police" and entitled "ACAB BCBG", for 
"All Cops Are Bastards" (all cops are bastards) and "preppy". An 
unbearable drawing for the municipal police officers who, after a simple 
bit of pressure at the town hall, managed to have the Tienstiens posters 
removed immediately...
Source: contre-attack.net

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