The French government uses artificial intelligence to identify illegal pools

By using artificial intelligence algorithms to identify illegal pools, the French government has managed to collect about 10 million euros more in taxes. In France, property tax is calculated based on the rental value of a property, so homeowners who don’t declare a pool pay hundreds of euros less in tax.

This project started a few months ago and for this purpose aerial photos recorded by the French National Institute of Geographical and Forestry Information are used. After identifying the pools, the information obtained is compared with the data related to the tax and real estate administration in order to identify illegal pools.

The scope of the project is currently very limited and currently only used for 9 cities. But even in these cities, thanks to artificial intelligence, 20,356 illegal swimming pools have been discovered. According to the estimates, it is said that by 2020 there will be about 3.2 million private swimming pools in the homes of French people, although after the Corona epidemic, employees staying at home and other conditions, the popularity of using these types of swimming pools has increased significantly. has been found

The use of private swimming pools is a controversial issue in France as the country struggles with drought and some rivers have run dry. Now the French tax administration wants to expand the use of artificial intelligence to identify swimming pools, and it is said that this will lead to an increase of 40 million euros in taxes received.

Early reports on the project indicated that the machine learning software had an unusually high error rate of 30 percent, mistaking other architectural features—such as solar panels—for pools. But now most of these problems have been solved and as a result the accuracy of these algorithms has improved.

Source: The Verge