Against social fraud, the government ready to study a Vitale biometric card

The idea of ​​a Vitale biometric card to fight against social fraud, demanded for a long time by the right and the extreme right, “deserves to be worked on” and the Government “will support a parliamentary mission” on the subject, the government said on Tuesday. Health Minister François Braun.

Like the new identity card, a biometric vital card would incorporate a chip that would store a copy of its owner’s fingerprints. Data that health professionals would be required to verify with each use.

Advocating “a rational approach to this issue through an objective assessment of the deficit and the adoption of appropriate measures”, Mr. Braun recalled that experimentation with a dematerialized Vitale card was ongoing and that “it should be evaluated”.

Assess feasibility

However, the trace of a biometric card, raised by the deputy of Isère Thibault Bazin (LR), “deserves to be worked on”, indicated the minister, judging there also necessary “to evaluate the conditions of effectiveness (and) feasibility together with professionals “.

A concession to the parliamentary right made “at the request of Prime Minister” Elisabeth Borne, he said, thus wanting the executive to be “listening to constructive ideas to move our country forward in a cross-partisan manner”, while a bitter debate has just begun. in his “purchasing power” bill.

This position will appear as a change of foot because the presidential majority had rejected a bill by LR senators on the same issue at the end of 2020, in particular in the name of “protection of privacy and personal data”.

That did not prevent three of the five candidates for the presidential primaries of the same party (Xavier Bertrand, Michel Barnier, Eric Ciotti) from taking up this idea, which was already on Nicolas Sarkozy’s agenda in 2012, but also on Marine Le Pen’s. in the last three presidential elections.