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France Set To Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Program (bloomberg.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the growing-challenge dept.
France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity -- whether they want it or not. From a report: Saying it wants to make the state more efficient, President Emmanuel Macron's government is pushing through plans to roll out an ID program, dubbed Alicem, in November, earlier than an initial Christmas target. The country's data regulator says the program breaches the European rule of consent and a privacy group is challenging it in France's highest administrative court. It took a hacker just over an hour to break into a "secure" government messaging app this year, raising concerns about the state's security standards. None of that is deterring the French interior ministry. "The government wants to funnel people to use Alicem and facial recognition," said Martin Drago, a lawyer member of the privacy group La Quadrature du Net that filed the suit against the state. "We're heading into mass usage of facial recognition. (There's) little interest in the importance of consent and choice." The case, filed in July, won't suspend Alicem.
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France Set To Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Program More

France Set To Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition ID Program

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  • For Euroskeptics... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Thursday October 03, 2019 @10:47AM (#59265534)
    This is why the EU central government is a good thing ... it provides a bureaucratic counterweight to the authoritarian schemes of member states. I hope shit like this is tied up in litigation for decades.

    • I'll bite - why would the EU oppose the idea of facial recognition ID?

      Seriously, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would forbid the EU from doing this....

      • Re:For Euroskeptics... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Thursday October 03, 2019 @10:57AM (#59265582)
        EU is much stricter about protecting personal privacy than other governments -- see also: GDPR.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Why would the EU care what a nation in the EU does with its own national ID system?
          Some nations have gov photo ID laws. Others EU nations cant even work out what gov ID people should have.
          France wants to use a "computer" for its ID systems? Thats for France to set...
          Unless the EU wants to change a lot of laws again? Should the EU demand all the very different EU nations stop their own nations photo ID laws?
          Protecting personal privacy like in Austria, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden?
        • In my experience, the EU is better about protecting personal privacy from corporations, but not from governments. I think this reflective of a general culture difference between the EU and the US. In the US we tend to distrust the government and not care as much about businesses. It's the opposite in the EU (again, in general).

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by AHuxley ( 892839 )
            Should EU governments allow people with no ID to wonder around all of the EU?
            No EU nation would allow them to enter with no ID?
            But France should allow people with no ID to stay in France?
            Why should a person have personal privacy from a gov wondering who the person is and how they entered the EU?
            Citizens have to have gov ID in some EU nations. Tourists might have to show some ID in some EU nations...when asked...
          • Corporations and governments are one and the same in the US. Also, TSA is government -- it invades people's private and demands "papers" to travel domestically. Police stops and searches are much more common in the US than in the EU, where much traffic enforcement has become automated. Again, government. The US likes to pretend to the the "land of the free." It's a nice fairy tale.
          • In the U.S. we keep thinking the Corporations that fix wages, prices, working conditions and safety standards are more reliable than elected officials.
            because too many of us are stupid

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jahta ( 1141213 )

          EU is much stricter about protecting personal privacy than other governments -- see also: GDPR.

          Also, the European Court (backed by the European Convention on Human Rights [wikipedia.org] and Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [wikipedia.org]) has a strong record of protecting citizens' rights.

          • Also, the European Court (backed by the European Convention on Human Rights [wikipedia.org] and Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [wikipedia.org]) has a strong record of protecting citizens' rights.

            So reassuring.

            Even as they prove useless for the victim of a sexual emergency [express.co.uk] whose assailant had charges dropped because it couldn't be clearly proved that a 10 year old boy didn't want to be raped.

            There's so many examples of that kind of outrage occurring in the courts of EU member states and even EU courts themselves. Yeah, you have 'citizen's rights' right up to the point where you don't for the sake of political expediency.

        • no, this is not insightful.

          The GDPR protects consumers form businesses abusing their private data. They don't give a flipping shit about governments abusing them.

          What about this logic even seems insightful or even sane? They have literally different rules between what government can do and want citizens or businesses can do.

          Literal apples and planets comparison there! Your government owns you, they can do whatever they want. What is the EU going to do about it? Nothing!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zmooc ( 33175 )

        That depends on what you mean by facial recognition ID. The EU in general is very reticent when it comes to personal data and privacy. Now, I don't think there's a law that explicitly forbids EU countries from creating facial recognition programs, but the EU requirements on identity cards clearly show the intention of the EU. For example, it explicitly states that any biometric data should be stored ONLY on identity cards (and thus not be available to any automated facial recognition technology like they ha

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 )
      Sounds great in theory, up until its the central government with the authoritarian schemes and people have let it become too powerful through misguided trust. Realistically the best model is to localize power as much as possible, and while that will certainly result in little pockets of awfulness, as long as there's freedom of movement people can always vote with their feet. Over time people will see which ideas and which systems work best and which should be avoided. But too often the strongly centralized
      • First of all, who says that the little fiefdoms will allow freedom of movement. Second of all, couldn't we just go back to the Dark Ages with loose central governments and a bunch of warring authoritarian city-states?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Localizing has it's own downsides. Look how major US companies nowadays basically hold auction on which place will give them the best deal on opening up a factory or major office complex. It's a race to the bottom and most of the time the only real winners are the companies in question. Then there are things like environmental regulation which are definitely best left to as a large a body as possible as it does you no good to have clean air and water laws if the city next to you pumps out enough pollution t

    • This is why the EU central government is a good thing ... it provides a bureaucratic counterweight to the authoritarian schemes of member states.

      By creating a vastly bigger authoritarian scheme?! Genius.

                   

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      What the hell kind of logic is this? Centralized anything is usually not a good thing. Especially government. It's the exact opposite of what protects citizens in USA from going full tard with federal laws like anti abortion or california's/new yorks continued acceleration into crazy law land (250k fine and against the law to say illegal alien wtf). You can move from one state to the other freely and get away from the crap. If EU decides everyone needs facial recognition and gets its members to abide by tha
    • Except that the EU is (shock horror) run by exactly the same failed, corrupt politicians that get kicked out of national governments for trying to implement exactly these kinds of authoritarian schemes.
  • I was talking with my teenage daughter about this the other day and she didn't see any problem with it. After a lengthy discussion, we agreed that as long as a government is benevolent, it's fine. The problem is that any look through history will show that governments rarely stay benevolent for long periods of time, AND this level of power and control is unprecedented in history. I ended our conversation by asking her "Are you absolutely certain that a future government will never misuse this, because th

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Whats France got to detect?
      The computer system detects a person not in the database?
      No French ID in the system. A person who did not enter under any day to day or long term approved passport that's in the system.
      Then what?
      Is a computer not showing any ID a reason for a short term police detention to ask for ID?
      Police track the person and walk up to the face with no ID.
      Ask for ID.
      They show their French ID. All good.
      Their passport/ID with the needed approval to be in the EU/France. All good.
      A no I

  • "Omg, computer says another frog!"

    If your first response to this old WWII joke is "how racist", instead of "Holy cow, the panopticon grows!", I hope you enjoy the future under your upcoming omniscient lords.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • don't be naive... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RAHH ( 5900166 ) on Thursday October 03, 2019 @12:45PM (#59266368)
    They're already doing it in EU and here in the US. However, they're just now making it public.

  • China said the same thing, before they used state owned surveillance to ID people who protested them and locked up millions in concentration camps.

    Would you like a cafe creme with that ID?

  • . . . institute this to track all Internet users internally?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]

  • “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is treason” -- Emmanuel Macron

    You know what's in store for you if you fail. The EU has become so over the top Orwellian it's hard to believe.

  • Fuck France and their smelly armpits. Stick THAT in your camera and recognize it.

  • Now we don't even need your stinking papiere, danke.

  • Considering the tendencies.

    France started walking the surveillance state, police state and dictatorship a long time ago.

    Police does not respect law. Police harms and kills citizens. Police is never punished. Thousands of yellow vests have been wounded and sued, dozens mutilated, and few killed in just a year.

    Castaner pretends none of this ever happened, even after testimonies and videos. And Macron ...

    And some count on the Europe to be a safeguard ? The same Europe that is ruled by the presidents an

  • I thank God every day that such a thing could never happen here. /sarc

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