seems fair to me.

I wonder how many unauthorised extensions it would find in the UK ? Although I can't see it getting a chance. Too many vested interests in it remaining "the sort of thing the French do" as the UK sinks further down towards it's mates at the bottom of the trusted government scale.

Just more state intrusive snooping.

I pay my taxes. It buys me civilisation.

It'd never work in the UK.

We could easily buy satellite photography and train an AI to try to identify buildings and match potential land registry data. We could even then buy more data next year and look for new buildings and construction.

But there are two main problems. The first is that local planning permission system may not feed accurate data back. As an example, remember a certain Dominic Cummings? The starting point for his notorious eye checkup was his parent's farm, but there were questions about whether the building on it was kosher: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-52911605

At the time I heard all kinds of statements about this being an outhouse because it lacked a kitchen, or other stupid loopholes in planning law. I'm not qualified to judge such things, but this did teach me that determining such things will be way beyond what an AI with some photos and a database of coordinates can be sure of.

The second issue is related.

The moment a donor to the Conservative party gets a visit about their new "outhouse" and what it means for their tax bill is the moment that the project dies. This government condones corruption, and would always stand with its friends and donors rather than have them pay their due.

Nonsense, it happens all the time. The local councils just fire up google earth and take a look. There was a farmer who built a house behind hay bales a few years ago.

Difference being that we're not taxed the same year. I had building work done on my house 17 years ago. All legal and declared. Our council tax rating now has an asterix next to it. That means that when we sell, the council can change the rating to a higher band.

AMBxx> Our council tax rating now has an asterix next to it.

Not Obelix?

Unless there is a menhir on the property, no

I'm a bit surprised there was no mention of checking who buys pool chemicals, or provides pool services.

I'd have thought access to that data would help identify pools which are not visible from above. And help to confirm information from other sources.

(Not saying I want them to do so.)

I'm a bit surprised there was no mention of checking who buys pool chemicals, or provides pool services.

Just moved to a house in France with a pool this year...

Pool services Hahahahaha... Nobody comes out unless you have major work to be done, at least in our area, we called the company who put our pool in (we had no experience) to give us a rundown on the system, no go, not even for fee. We paid cash for our shock and chlorine etc... The rest was up to me to learn as we go.

French* workers (that includes local government officers) need to be 'bribed' if you want them to do any actual work. It doesn't have to be a brown envelope full of notes, a nice bottle or even a homemade cake will work wonders - you're apologising for the inconvenience you're putting them to. But Brits aren't aware of this culture, and get rotten service.

* applies equally to most of southern Europe.

you're apologising for the inconvenience you're putting them to

So true. The standard conversation opener to get any kind of service is "désolé de vous déranger, monsieur...", i.e. "I'm really sorry to disturb you, but..."

That is actually the old-school, polite way to address anyone when calling on the telephone.

The French equivalent to "the customer is always right" is "le client est roi" meaning 'the customer is king', but we know what they did to their last king.

Because that would mean requesting that shops keep files on who buys what, and then give access to that personal information. All of which is restricted by the GDPR, and of course, is trivially defeated by using cash.

Whereas looking over the fence has always been legal.

Also, don't worry to much: a pool that's truly not visible from above is unlikely to be one that needs to be declared: those under 10m² are exempt.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F35108/0_0?idFicheParent=F31404&lang=en#0_0

Not really. I bought 25kg of fertilizer. Had to give my name and address. Plus confirm it would be kept under lock and key (anti-terror laws to stop me making a bomb).

Similarly, I had to register and take a test to be able to buy proper rat poison. I can only buy if I present the certificate.

It’s very different. In both of these cases, you gave your consent in advance of the purchaes for the autorities to have your details; and you are the direct beneficiary of the purchases (I don’t know French laws on this, but I suspect it is a criminal offence to buy controlled poisons for an unidintified third party).

That’s very different to the government going to a pool-cleaning supplier and demanding their customer lists for the sole purposes of conducting a tax investigation. There’s no public safety grounds for doing this that would override the lack of consent from the purchasers.

However, if the French taxman is like his Irish cousin (who I do know about), they can —and will— look at the tax returns of the construction and pool-cleaning companies to estimate how many pools there are in each company’s catchment, and they can then compare that with the property improvement declarations in that are to see if they tally. If not, an on-the-ground investigation can be conducted to find out who’s dodging. All of this can be discovered without knowing one customer name or address, so GDPR does not apply. This story sounds like they used the satellite imagery as a replacement for that on-the-ground survey in certain Départments where there was already an anomoly, rather than them starting from a blank sheet.

Then you need to convert your pool into a pond. The pool is taxed, the pond is a garden feature. You know you need to be creative when confronted by the tax men.

When done properly, the pond is a site of special scientific interest...

France: It's like Thunderbirds, except your rocket launch pad slides aside to reveal a hidden swimming pool.

These pools are not 'secret', they are undeclared to avoid to pay taxes.

Talking about "Artificial Intelligence" for an image-analysis software is a little bit far fetched, isn't it?

== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==

You're right.

Definitely not AI.

AI is what the computer can't do yet.

Talking about "Artificial Intelligence" for an image-analysis software is a little bit far fetched, isn't it?

Image analysis has been described as artificial intelligence since forever... The fact every phone can do this today doesn't mean it was easy to do: [1]https://xkcd.com/1425/

[1] https://xkcd.com/1425/

Side note: I've seen the cost of this little thing in another article: €24M for 2021-2023.

Cap Gemini is really good at stealing gaining money from taxpayers.

== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==

Dabbs has gone into hiding because according to an unnamed source he is the non-registered owner of these pools...

So, some creativity is now required, don't make pools rectangular, and use different coloured tiles to break up the shape when viewed from above.

First you'd have to find a shape of something that isn't taxed

The software was developed by Google and Capgemini, and was reported to have a 30 per cent error rate

THIRTY PERCENT! And this is considered a "success?"

As long as it's generating false positives, which obviously can be taxed because computer says yes!, and not false negatives, where it might miss something that can be taxed, oh no!, then that's a success.

Apparently.

Any error rate better than 50% is considered a success in AI land..

But as long as it is checked by humans, this is one of the few cases where I approve of the use of AI. No new data is being collected, and it makes rich b**tards pay their taxes.

Unsurprising

Currently I have a few bright blue tarpaulins (overall area more than 10m2 French pool min size) spread in my garden (to kill off some grass, ready to sew wildflower seeds next year).

I'm sure it would look like a pool to an AI - rectangular and blue

And lets not even get into the fun of shadows - anyone who has taken lots of outdoor photos will have encountered occasional odd blue or purple shadows.

I'm guessing AI could well have issues with a blue shadow of reasonable size (10m2 is not that large)

Also worth noting that the "Moroccan style" garden look comes in and out of fashion and when a garden styled in that way often involves blue tiles / paint, could potentially look like a pool.

A koi pond* would be above minimum pool size, but if used for fish, would not count as a swimming pool.

Even a simple task can be difficult (and consider potential dismal resolution of the imagery - in the area I live Google satellite view images are so poor you would struggle to ID a house in some situations never mind the verandas / extensions etc. they dream of finding in future)

Yes, you can get koi pools below 10m2, but the koi enthusiasts I know have ponds larger than that