It was demanded by the employers of the hotel and catering industry, as well as by several parliamentarians.
But these were not heard by the government.
The integration of a photo in the health pass, soon transformed into a vaccination pass, has indeed been rejected by the government.
This provision does not appear in the bill definitively adopted by the National Assembly on Sunday, despite several amendments tabled to this effect.
Why such a choice, when some believe that adding a photo to the document only had advantages, in particular the improvement of the fight against fraud or the simplification of identity checks?
Solicited by
Le Figaro
, the State Secretariat for the Digital Transition and Electronic Communications highlights technical considerations.
Read alsoCovid-19: is the health pass really “ineffective” against the epidemic?
“
Several impacts have been identified in the implementation of this system, particularly in terms of compatibility with the European framework. The DCC European interoperability framework, used by more than 60 States to date, does not allow a photo of the person to be
included in the health pass, "explains to Cédric O's office. In other words, if the France was planning to insert a photo on its national health pass, it would have to negotiate a change of technical framework at European level. But also change "
the format
" chosen by the French administration for the health pass, called standard 101 in the jargon, which "
does not allow the affixing of a photograph
", explains Samy Benzina, professor of public law at theUniversity of Poitiers. "
It would be necessary, or would have been necessary, to move to the 105 standard to allow such photographs, which poses considerable operational problems at this stage
,” he continues.
More simply, "
the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) does not have photos of all their insured, and many uninsured are screened or vaccinated
", we also report to the Secretary of State.
Asking people to upload a photo to their pass themselves would also run the risk that many people, who are not very comfortable with digital, simply do not succeed, underlines Serge Slama, professor of public law at Grenoble Alpes University.
No legal obstacles
Finally, even if these obstacles were removed, the executive is not openly in favor of this tool in its strategy to fight against fraud. It would effectively limit health pass loans to unvaccinated relatives. But "
this type of fraud is set to decrease since to date more than 53 million people have a complete vaccination cycle (two doses without a booster)
," says Cédric O's office. Include a photo pass would not reduce “
fraud in the generation of the pass, which is the most observed to date
“, we add.
As of December 30, nearly 200,000 false passes have been uncovered by the police, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, against only some 2,000 verbalizations recorded for loans of health passes.
Read alsoDates, places, people concerned … What the bill on the vaccine pass contains
The lawyers interviewed by
Le Figaro
subscribe to the technical reasons put forward by the government. Indeed, "
there are no legal obstacles
" to adding a photo to the health pass, judge Paul Cassia, professor of public law at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, stressing that there already appear "
first name, last name and date of birth
". Serge Slama adds a nuance: if the executive had made such a choice, he would have been forced to take "
additional precautions
", believes this specialist in fundamental rights. Probably by consulting the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil),of the fact that the photos of faces carry “
biometric data
”.
To better fight against fraud in health passes, parliamentarians have made another choice.
That of granting the possibility, for the managers of establishments open to the public (in particular bars and restaurants), to ask a customer "
an official document containing his photograph
" to verify the concordance with the health pass, in the event of suspicion of fraud.
The initial bill provided for an obligation to check identity, which was removed by the Senate.
To the great relief of restaurateurs and café owners, whose representatives of the sector consider that this type of control should thus remain quite marginal.
Read alsoIdentity checks with the vaccination pass: it will be marginal, according to restaurateurs
