> The tax authorities say the software could eventually be used to find undeclared home extensions, patios or gazebos, which also play a part in property taxes.<p>Well, let's not be over optimistic. The PM in charge of the project on the taxe administration side is probably happy that his project is going well. However, different branches of the state are already doing that with tree line and tree coverage change for farmers subsidies. That project is not going well because of the large amount of false positives.<p>Trying to spot undeclared house extension will very likely follow the same path because the problem is infinitely more difficult, the data ("cadastre") is messy and Capgemini is absolutely not capable of handling that complexity by lack of skills and experience.
This is redicolous. At some point we have admit as a civilisation we have failed, when there are drones or sattelites taking fotos of our back yards -all the time- just do idenfiy those 10 people in a neigbourhood that have "saved" 300 bucks a year.<p>I mean sure its France where they think a little different about privacy, but you can make sure that once the quality is good enough, someone will put your naked butt on the internet, because they found them while doing "routine work"-<p>And no, neither google earth or bing or apple have detailed enough picture quality to identify anything. on purpose. That will not however be true for the drone your local gov uses.<p>Im not trying to create a state of naked people either, but the point still stand that if you need this tech to find a couple of pools, you might as well put cameras everywhere.
> <i>They have amassed some €10m (£8.5m) in revenue, French media is reporting.</i><p>Knowing Capgemini, they have probably charged them €15m for a very subpar solution.
Maybe if there weren't taxes on so many things and the system were more reasonable, easier to navigate, and easier to understand, people would be more compliant. It's annoying that government in most western countries insists on involvement in so many aspects of daily life. This is meant as a general comment, not specific to France.
And I thought this was going to be about AI finding some sort of illicit dark pools in finance, indicating some sort of shady business. Lol.<p>Those types of pools aren't the ones AI is being tasked to find of course. Why would AI even try to uncover the nefarious activities of its owners?<p>Anyway, here's to another governmental (planning, tax department) success! Hurrah!
To bring some context, temporary above ground pools are exempted, I don’t know if the software makes the distinction, but the global system software + tax people has to make it.
I can’t think they’re after people who don’t declare their pools. They’re after people who build swimming pools on land where it’s illegal to build them, making the value of their land much higher than it is worth.<p>In france there are tons of places where it’s illegal to build pools, but if no one notices for 10 years, you’re officially off the hook, so a lot of people try their luck.<p>The firemen too like to have swimming pools around in dry areas as water reserves. So even if someone finds out about your pool, you may still get away with a fine.<p>It’s all a bit weird