France Announces Digital Identity App Just Days After Macron Re-Election

A policeman checks the Covid-19 health pass of customers in a bar in Saint-Malo, northwest
JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The French government has announced the creation of a new digital identity app for citizens to access private and public services, in line with a broader push for digital identity systems in Europe.

Just days after the re-election of globalist President Emmanuel Macron, the Ministry of the Interior has announced that it will be crafting a smartphone application to house a new digital identity.

The biometric app, which is based off the new identity card, was signed off in a decree by Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Tuesday.

The app will allow users to scan their physical identity card and it will be uploaded to be used to access public or private services.

The new system comes in place of the previous attempt by the government in 2019 to implement a digital identity. Dubbed the Alicem, the proposed system proved controversial and was ultimately scrapped over backlash over the use of facial recognition and fingerprints, broadcaster BFMTV reported.

The new digital identity will not record such personal features, however, it will contain details such as names, date of birth, a photo, and both email and physical addresses.

According to the government, the application “allows the user, in particular, to generate electronic certificates containing only the identity attributes whose transmission he considers necessary to third parties of his choice”.

It is not currently clear as to how broad the use purposes of the digital identity application will be, however, the French have been forced to grow accustomed to using digital apps to access a wide range of services during the Chinese coronavirus crisis with the introduction of the pass sanitaire (health/vaccine passport).

It is also unclear as to whether the government will seek to use the identity app as a means of social control. However, the French government has previously admitted that the use of a vaccine passport was in fact a “disguised” form of a vaccine mandate intended to make it difficult for non-vaccinated people to function in society and therefore bend the people to the government’s will.

The European Union as a whole is also planning on introducing a digital identity application sometime this year in order to enable people to enjoy the “greater flexibility ideal for post-pandemic life”.

The planned application would allow citizens in all 27 member states to access government websites of any EU nation and will act as a wallet to pay for things such as utilities and even to rent cars.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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