It is the hub of Parisian public transport, one of the most crowded stations in Europe. The multiple arteries of the Châtelet station were already the subject of sharp surveillance before the health crisis. As May 11 approaches, the RATP has enriched its surveillance arsenal with cameras equipped with automatic recognition software.
Six in number on the first day of deconfinement – double in the long term – they will be able to differentiate between users wearing a mask and those who do not. According to RATP, cited by The world and Paris Match, this “experimental” device has been tested since Wednesday morning.
The experiment will take place over three months. Its objective: to estimate the number of travelers respecting the obligation to wear a mask in public transport.
“This device is absolutely not intended for verbalization purposes,” insists the transport operator.
“No image is transmitted”
The technology used to identify hidden users is “99.5%” reliable, according to Xavier Fischer, the confounder of the start-up Datakalab, at the origin of the algorithm. In the columns of World, the interested party continues:
“All the processing is done at the camera level: no image is transmitted, only a statistic is sent. And the analysis is done in RAM, so that even if the camera was stolen, there would be nothing find there “.
This is not the first time that “smart” cameras have been tested at the Châtelet station. In 2017, reports The Parisian, a similar system had been used to identify “suspicious behavior”. The technology currently being tested had previously been tested in Cannes.
The RATP claims to comply with the legislation and stresses having reported this system to the National Commission and Freedoms (CNIL). Travelers will also be warned of the presence of this device, it said.
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