French home secretary announces chip ID card with "perfectly secure"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:42:38 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Freematt357 () aol com
> Subject: French home secretary announces chip ID card
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
>
>
> http://www.silicon.com/news/500022/1/6228.html
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> [Note from Matt Gaylor: My favorite quote- "It's no longer up to the citizens
> to come to e-government, it’s up to e-government go to them"]
>
> Wed 1 October 2003 05:17PM BST
>
>
> French home secretary announces chip ID card
> Privacy concerns raised ­ sound familiar?
> A "perfectly secure" electronic identity card will be in use in France by
> 2006, French Home Secretary Nicolas Sarkozy has announced. The card will 
> carry a
> chip which will combine "the standard type of personal data you get in this
> type of document and an electronic certification system". A digital
> authentication system with a public key infrastructure (PKI) will be used 
> to guarantee the
> authenticity of the holder and ensure confidentiality.
>
> But when it comes to whether the card will contain biometrics, Sarkozy said
> it is still too early to tell but underlined that the card is still in the
> project stage. For Sarkozy, the potential applications for the card are far
> clearer, however. Citizens will be able to use the card with central 
> government,
> local authorities as well as businesses, he said.
>
> The minister also announced that "a strategic blueprint for electronic public
> services from 2003 to 2007" will be published in the coming weeks. "It's no
> longer up to the citizens to come to e-government, it’s up to 
> e-government go
> to them", he said.
> But the question of the protection of personal data hasn't gone away and is
> still being asked by the public. The electronic card looks set to stir up the
> debate about all the possible byproducts of using a "unique 
> identification" to
> access all the e-government services. The then civil service minister Michel
> Sapin had ordered a white paper on the subject, which was completed in 
> February
> 2002, by Pierre Truche, honorary president of the Supreme Court of Appeal. He
> highlighted the difficulty of defining the concept of digital identity which,
> he said, wasn't "unambiguous and uniform".
>
> Equally, the government is questioning how to reconcile the one uber-ID card
> with all the other cards people use for everyday life. Faced with these
> questions, the government has decided to relaunch discussions on the 
> subject of
> security and date security. A forum devoted to the subject was opened on 26
> September.
>
> However, the preamble to the forum already gives a taster of what to expect
> from the government in the future. "To access a particular service, a citizen
> will be able to use the authentication tool of his choice, with the level of
> security it provides corresponding to the level of sensitivity of the 
> service,"
> it reads, "Some people will choose a single card, others will want to
> 'partition' the various services by using different cards. The government 
> will give
> the citizen the freedom of choice."
>
> Estelle Dumout writes for ZDNet France.
>
>
> silicon.com

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