The massive database, known as Secure Electronic Documents (Titres électroniques sécurisés or TES), was decreed by the government on October 30, with the authorities announcing it as a “crack down on identity theft”.
In the French media the move sparked wide condemnation. The weekly magazine L’Observateur called it “terrifying”, and daily newspaper Libération calling it a “mega database doing no good”.
Some 60 million people will be directly affected by TES and it is the first time the country has collected population data on a similar scale since the start of the Nazi Occupation in 1940.
The same information included on a French identity card or passport, will be collected for the single centralised system: The first and last names, address, eye colour, weight, marital status, a photograph as well as fingerprints. Only children under the age of 12 wil be exempted.
The information taken from passports will be stored for 15 years while identity card information will be kept for at least twenty years, France24 reported.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve defended the TES on Wednesday following vocal criticisms of the data grab, but it is unlikely that opposition to TES will simmer down.
Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas also justified the database, saying it offered “better security for [identity cards and passports]” in a Facebook post, but the government’s decision to issue a decree on the system instead of submitting a bill for parliamentary approval has raised questions over the database’s legality.
The database has sparked ethical as well as political objections with critics slamming the increased security at the expense of individual civil liberties and privacy.
Despite the government’s denials, the database’s contents will be paired with information collected from surveillance cameras.
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