The text is passed almost unnoticed. A full weekend of all saints day, a decree published Sunday in the Official Journal has authorized the creation of a huge computer file containing personal information and biometric of 60 million French, as the spotted the site NextInpact. This file, called TES (securities secure e-mail), now includes “all personal data that is common to passports and identity card”.
The goal : to collect information common to the passports and cards of national identity, such as fingerprints, home address, email address or telephone contact information of (almost) the entirety of the French population. The implementation of this huge file, however, has been the subject of many reservations, the CNIL (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés), the institution responsible for ensuring respect for private life.
The TES will eventually replace the two separate files dedicated to passports and identity cards, as explained in The World. It will contain in particular many personal data, such as eye color, size, domicile, email address and telephone contact information.
More sensitive, the TES will bring together also the fingerprints and the facial image of the face of nearly 60 million French. The CNIL, asked for its opinion by the ministry of the interior, had suggested the adoption of “devices pose less risk to the protection of personal data”, as “the retention of biometric data on an individual support exclusively owned by the person”. A recommendation that was not followed by the government.
All these personal data, retained for 15 years for passports and 20 years for identity cards, may be consulted in the first place by the officials in charge of enforcing the regulations of passports and identity cards. The police, gendarmerie or intelligence services may also have access to the file, like Interpol or the Schengen information system. The judicial authorities will not be able to see, but the CNIL reminds that “the data contained in the TES (…) may be the object of legal requisitions”.
In the clear : many of the services of the State will be able to access this huge file. A fact regretted by the French CNIL, who complains in his view the absence of control of the Parliament in the elaboration of the file. “The issues raised (by TES) would have deserved a real organization with a real impact study and the organisation of a parliamentary debate,” writes the institution. Notice, again, no follow-up by the government.
in order To limit the risk of drift, the decree, however, forbids the establishment of a “search feature, allowing for the identification” from the face or fingerprints. In summary : there is, for the moment, not possible to use the TES to make the automated recognition. Not reassuring for all that, Michel Tubiana, honorary president of the League of Human Rights. “There is no guarantee for the future. In addition, there is no recourse and no control by an independent body. The government is engaged in a process identical to the Patriot Act (an anti-terrorism law adopted by the United States under George W. Bush, ed)”, is critical of the lawyer, interviewed by Europe 1.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, one of the signatories of the decree, however, was one of the opponents of the “super file” and wanted by the right, now in power in 2011, remember NextInpact. The minister of foreign Affairs had even seized the constitutional Council, with other deputies and senators of the socialist to censor a part of the bill in march 2012. Four years later, the socialist majority has realized what the right called for.
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