FRANCE 24 has won the human rights prize at France’s international festival for current affairs reporting and social documentaries (FIGRA) for an in-depth look at tech company Clearview AI's efforts to identify and log the faces of every single person on the planet. FRANCE 24 also received special mention for a documentary on Ukrainian resistance fighters.
FRANCE 24 reporters Roméo Langlois and Jessica Le Masurier were awarded FIGRA’s human rights prize for the 57-minute-long “Your face is ours: The dangers of facial recognition software” documentary on June 1. The documentary, produced in collaboration with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and filmed on three continents, looks at how Clearview AI is amassing a huge database of individual human faces. In all, Clearview AI plans to collect some 100 billion images in its database – 14 for every person on the planet.
Although the company claims the database will serve as a force for good, identifying spies and criminals, it could potentially also be used for mass surveillance and profiling should it fall into the wrong hands.
FRANCE 24’s Gwendoline Debono also received a FIGRA special mention for her 35-minute-long documentary “Ukraine's shadow soldiers: Meeting resistance fighters in Kherson region”. In a co-production with French broadcaster Arte, Debono went to meet ordinary Ukrainian citizens in the southern Kherson region who helped to liberate the city of Kherson from Russian control through their clandestine actions.
More than 70 documentaries competed in the 31st edition of the week-long FIGRA international festival held in Douai in northern France which ended on Sunday.
(FRANCE 24)
