The Philippines sidestepped a flag ban at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) removed the country from its compliance watchlist.
Anti-doping refers to the rules and procedures that detect and prevent the use of banned substances and methods by athletes in sports events. WADA notified the PSC in September 2023 of the PH’s defiance of its rules, and the PSC had until January 2024 to resolve the remaining breaches.
In January 2024, the PSC received another warning about the PH’s failure to comply with the WADA Code. Until the country abides by the WADA Code, the anti-doping body has threatened to withhold the display of the PH flag at major global events like the Olympics and Paralympics.
In February 2023, the PSC denied the allegations of noncompliance. This urged WADA to appeal the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which concerned many including Olympics betting fans.
WADA Chief Compliance Manager Emiliano Simonelli sent an email to Dr Alejandro Pineda, the Philippine National Anti-Doping Organisation chairman, confirming the country’s release from the compliance watchlist.
‘I am pleased to confirm that in light of the latest developments, the Compliance Review Committee has decided to sign off the remaining pending critical corrective actions relating to testing and results management. As a result, the compliance procedure has now been closed and the case will not be filed before the Court of Arbitration for Sport’, Simonelli said in the letter.
PSC chairperson Richard Bachmann expressed his gratitude to WADA and PHI-NADO. He said that the PSC appreciates WADA’s assistance in resolving all of the issues.
To prevent problems in the future, the PSC will work with PHI-NADO to continue improving and to draft proper legislation that complies with WADA Code 20.5.1. This code states groups need ‘to be independent in their operational decisions and activities from sport and government, including without limitation by prohibiting any’.
What is the WADA code?
The WADA code is the document that states anti-doping policies and rules within sports groups and among public officials worldwide. It ensures fair and equal competition and protects the health of athletes worldwide.
The main elements of the WADA Code include:
- Prohibited list → List substances and methods that are prohibited in sport, updated yearly by WADA.
- Testing and investigations → Sets standards for sample collection, analysis, and results management processes.
- Education and prevention → Focuses on raising awareness, promoting values-based education programs, and advocating for anti-doping.
- Consequences → Outlines sanctions for anti-doping rule violations, including banning periods and removal results.
- Roles → Defines the roles and duties of various stakeholders in the anti-doping system.
Paris Olympics to use AI surveillance
The 2024 Paris Olympics is one of the most looked forward events that people can support on various Olympics betting sites. Since it is such a large-scale event, France plans to use AI to monitor the thousands of Olympic athletes, coaches, and spectators.
This earned criticism, with many saying it is a form of invasive surveillance. French officials have conducted tests of AI surveillance systems at football matches, concerts, and train stations.
These systems will scan the crowds, detect weapons, and check for abandoned parcels when the games open in July 2024. French officials say that the police, fire and rescue services and certain transport security agents will employ these tools until March 31, 2025.
‘The Olympics is a huge opportunity to test this type of surveillance under the guise of security issues, and are paving the way to even more intrusive systems such as facial recognition’, Katia Roux, advocacy lead at Amnesty International France, said.
However, they will not be completely operational before the games. Videtics, Orange Business, ChapsVision, and Wintics are the four companies that the French government has enlisted to take part in the initiative.
Concerts by Black-Eyed Peas, Depeche Mode, and the football match between Olympique Lyon and PSG, have served as test venues for the programme. The security platforms also tracked crucial events including:
- Traffic going against the flow
- People in restricted zones
- Crowd movement
- Abandoned packages and weapons
- Overcrowding
- Fire
Other subjects of the trials included the 40,000 people who attended the Cannes Film Festival and those who travelled using metro stations to watch Taylor Swift’s concert. Despite the French police’s favour for AI surveillance, others expressed their concerns. A 2020 study estimates that the French police maintain a network with roughly 90,000 video surveillance cameras around the country.
‘One overarching concern is that while the majority of these use cases may not seem to involve revealing the identity of, or profiling people, they still require the deployment of a surveillance infrastructure that is always one software update away from doing the most invasive kinds of mass surveillance’, Daniel Leufer, a senior policy analyst at digital rights group AccessNow, said.
AI surveillance fuels concerns
Lawmakers in France have banned facial recognition software to appease critics. Wintics co-founder Matthias Houllier stated that the experiment was ‘strictly limited’ to the eight use cases listed in the law.
This prohibits the use of features such as crowd movement detection for other purposes, such as gait detection, which uses a person’s distinctive gait to identify them. Houllier stated that the design of Wintics makes it ‘completely impossible’ for both end-users and expert engineers to utilise it for facial recognition.
‘There is nowhere near the necessary amount of transparency about these technologies. There is a very unfortunate narrative that we cannot permit transparency about such systems, particularly in a law enforcement or public security context, but this is nonsense’, Leufer said.
He further claims that the use of surveillance tech, especially in the domains of law enforcement and public security, presents a great risk. This requires a heightened degree of public awareness.
France’s past use of surveillance has also raised concerns. In November 2023, the non-profit group, Disclose, discovered that law enforcement officials had secretly used facial recognition software developed by the Israeli company Briefcam.
Despite concerns and issues amidst the Paris Olympics, many are getting hyped up to witness yet again another year of sporting talents from athletes around the world. One question plaguing fans is ‘Can you bet on the Olympics?’. With the rise of online sportsbooks, supporting athletes through betting is now easier than ever before.