Paris (AFP)

Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O said on Monday that it was necessary to reach "now" a digital identity system provided by the State, so that Internet users can identify themselves online with a reliability as strong as that offered by the ID card in the real world.

"This is a project that must now be completed (...) it must become a concrete reality in the life of the French," assured Mr. O during a press conference call on the occasion of the publication of a report on the subject of the National Digital Council (CNNum).

During confinement, "we saw the difference in resilience between countries which had this capacity to transform online (...) part of their functioning, and countries like France, which did rather well in fine but with a number of difficulties in all public services, "he said.

On "subjects such as voting, public services", having a digital identity "accessible to all and widely used would have made it possible to improve everyday life and to have a more important civic life" , he estimated.

The construction of an online identity tool is a French sea serpent, delayed in particular by fears of diversion to systems of surveillance of citizens by the State or other actors.

The report of the National Digital Council, published Monday, recalls these failed projects, including the national secure electronic identity project (Ines) in 2003 of then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, and that of the private consortium Idenum, launched in 2009.

- Fears of drift -

The rapporteurs, who organized a series of citizen consultations, underlined "the strong fears fed by anxiety-provoking cultural references", such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the dystopian "Black Mirror" series, the cases of data leaks, the politics of Chinese government ...

"The fears of potential abuses must be heard in a parliamentary debate," said one of the two CNNum rapporteurs, Karine Dognin-Sauze. "We support the idea of ​​a digital identity orientation law, which must be subject to democratic debate."

Last year, the Alicem online identification system project, running on an Android smartphone, was temporarily put on a sideline in the face of fears over its use of facial recognition.

Before his first use of Alicem, the internet user had to take a selfie then scan his passport or residence permit, so that the application verifies that he is who he claims to be.

According to the director of the interdepartmental program on digital identity, Valérie Peneau, Alicem should finally be technically operational at the start of the next school year.

"The project is always available from the start of the school year, in September / October 2020, provided that the audits still in progress conclude" to the achievement of the expected level of security, said Ms. Peneau, who was assisting also at the presentation of the report.

But Alicem is just the first brick, and "we are obviously building much more universal and inclusive solutions in the months and years to come," she said.

© 2020 AFP