Cyber Daily: France's Plan to Use Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Terrorism Sparks Privacy Concerns

AI spy: On Wednesday, France's Prime Minister Jean Castex said the government plans to submit a bill to parliament seeking permanent authority to order telecoms firms to monitor not just telephone data but also the full URLs of specific webpages their users visit in real time. Government algorithms would alert intelligence officials when certain criteria are met, such as an internet user visiting a specific sequence of pages. French Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said intelligence officials would need approval from him, the prime minister and an outside agency to unmask a person flagged for his or her browsing. One portion of the bill would allow French intelligence officials to use older intelligence data, including data the government isn't currently allowed to retain, to train AI systems to look for unforeseen patterns and develop new tools. An interior ministry official said such data would be anonymized, though privacy experts say anonymizing data so it can't be later reattributed is difficult.