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.
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.
It would be pretty easy to just detect new extensions by looking at historical satellite images, and then manually check if they had approval.
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"-
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.
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.
Your statement is comparable to calling it ridiculous that we have roads "just so an ice cream truck can sell ice cones to neighbourhood kids during the summer". That's obviously not the main use case for roads.
Yes, there are aerial photos since the 50s, no, it's not possible for humans to scan all of them, not in a life time.
> 10 people in a neigbourhood that have "saved" 300 bucks a year.
That's not the point.
The points are:
- social justice, if I pay you have to pay. If you don't pay taxes to IRS what happens? I bet they use a lot more than AI to find people who eludes them...
- undisclosed pools (and other undisclosed properties) are a proxy for other illegal activities. For example in Italy villas of sentenced criminals are usually hidden. This way the State could find them and confiscate them.
Anyway in Italy they have already discovered more than 20 thousand undisclosed pools. And the job is not done yet.
EDIT: I work in an insurance company, we use similar techniques to identify buildings in satellite images and compare them to same pictures after a flood or a fire, to estimate damages.
It could be done by human eyes, It would take years.
This way clients are reimbursed swiftly and can start rebuilding what has been damaged.
Edit: typos
I completely disagree (many rich people think the same way you do, this is not a novel argument, it is as old as taxes themselves), but the point was not on taxes, but on justice.
Meaning that if you pay a tax because - like it or not - you have to pay for it, I should pay it too, if we are in the same situation.
That's what I meant for "social justice", the obligation towards the community to fulfill your duties the same way other members of the community do.
We have a (small, legal) pool. One year we bought that inflatable green alligator pool toy which was so popular -- one of these https://the-hollywood-gossip-res.cloudinary.com/iu/s--WNibF2...
There was a time you could see our pool alligator on google earth.
Here in germany you can even have your house blurred out on google maps if you submit a request.
I believe your definition of easy is a bit faulty.
It can also be used to spot building extensions etc. And it also gives a hint on other cheating and crime, for example if the household is on benefits, pays no tax and all of a sudden a pool pops up in the garden. It might still be legit, but at least an investigation can be done.
Sure it might be seen a bit over the top, but what are the alternatives? If people do not declare when it is taxable, then things might need to be enforced. Sure these taxes could be removed, but at the same time it might be fair to tax people who can afford building a pool. Probably better than increasing tax on work.
As a german when I hear about bad privacy my first thought is always of the UK ;)
However it tends to be individual privacy. A grainy picture of a pool processed without judgement by an algorithm feels a lot like panorama rights to me. The software sees the same thing I can see on Google Maps.
Google is involved in the project. This almost certainly uses google earth’s data
I have absolutely no problem with a guy in a plane pointing at pools and taking notes and knocking on peoples doors.
What I do have a problem with is unnecessary surveillance of the innocent.
so in your opinion police patrolling the streets are an "unnecessary surveillance of the innocent"?
because disclosed pools are already known to the State. Technically is not surveillance if they already know that you have a pool and they actually find a pool there (what a surprise!)
and why should I pay for it and not you?
If water consumption is a problem tax it progressivly.
the fact is that if your pool is undisclosed, you haven't requested the necessary authorizations (what you actually pay for), which means it is not deemed safe.
Pools are taxed directly when they are considered a luxury item in a house that have all the features (there's a list) of a luxury residence.
It's already a progressive tax, it couldn't be any different here, progressivity of taxation is written in our Constitution.
Tax evasion massively erodes people's trust in institutions. If it's prevalent enough, cheating becomes the default option, and things fall apart quickly.
Knowing Capgemini, they have probably charged them €15m for a very subpar solution.
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?
Anyway, here's to another governmental (planning, tax department) success! Hurrah!
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.
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.
It’s all a bit weird
How else would you do it?
Iterate through the pixels and check for certain blue values? And maybe a small greyish border area? How is that fancy enough?
(I remember helping ecology students with beginners programming, which was what they did, only that they had to check for green)
