France passes controversial AI surveillance bill ahead of 2024 Olympics

French legislators on Thursday passed a bill to power up police surveillance using artificial intelligence. The move comes ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which will see millions descend on the French capital. The law will allow authorities to use software to identify potential threats such as dangerous crowd movements and abandoned bags. It forbids the use of biometric identification such as facial recognition, but activists argue it nevertheless opens the floodgates to potentially discriminatory and privacy-harming automated surveillance.