Cyrille Dalmont is an associate researcher at the Thomas More Institute and a specialist in digital ethical issues.
FIGAROVOX.- On February 2, the Ministry of the Interior announced that a QR Code will appear on the electoral cards of registered voters for the presidential and legislative elections. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of QR codes has spread in France to all categories of the population. Are we building a large database of users?
Cyrille DALMONT.-
It is a fact that is almost unanimously recognized today, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitization of our societies but also of our lives in an astonishing way.
The proliferation of "quick response code" QR Codes which can store up to 7,089 numeric characters, 4,296 alphanumeric characters in their most complete version may seem surprising.
Indeed, this technology has been under a free license since 1999. It comes from the automotive world for the management of stocks and defective parts.
However, the recent explosion of QR Codes in Europe owes nothing to chance.
This rather old technology owes its recent success to a combination of several factors.
The will of the European Commission to create a European biometric passport backed by the largest biometric database in the world, the Common Identity Repository (CIR) and the creation of a European digital identity.
Cyrille Dalmont
The European Commission's desire to create a European biometric passport backed by the largest biometric database in the world, the Common Identity Repository (CIR), the principle of which was adopted in February 2019, and the creation of a European digital identity. These two projects, which require complete interoperability of the European Union's information systems, were technically and legally hardly possible until very recently. QR Code technology enables this interoperability. The fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has made it possible to remove legal obstacles. It is also interesting to note that the new European identity cards already have since August 2, 2021, like the future electoral cards, a QR Code. The government had toelsewhere affirmed in the same way that this would make it possible to simplify the administrative procedures but not to trace their holders.
Is this a declared will of the European Commission?
The European Commission has been working on the CIR since 2015. Originally, this project aimed to fight terrorism.
For this the European Commission wanted interoperability of the systems covered by the Schengen information system, Eurodac (fingerprints), the visa information system (VIS) the European criminal records system for third-country nationals (ECRIS -TCN), the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS).
Even though the CIR was adopted by the European Parliament in 2019, many technical and legislative obstacles existed to determine a unique identifier for all Europeans.
The EU digital COVID certificate has been a game changer.
While we have all seen that our health pass includes a European logo to allow the free movement of people within the European Union, it also makes it possible to have a unique identifier for all vaccinated people.
But not the unvaccinated.
Read alsoIvan Rioufol: “The hygienist state disfigures democracy”
Added to the CIR project is the European digital identity project that the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen presented in the following way:
"Every time an application or a website offers us to create a new digital or connect easily through a large platform, we have no idea what happens to our data, in reality.
This is why the Commission will propose a secure European electronic identity.
A reliable identity, which any citizen can use anywhere in Europe for any purpose, such as paying taxes or renting a bicycle.
A technology that will allow us to control what data we share and the use that can be made of it.”
Do you fear that we will switch to a Chinese-style control society with a social credit system?
It is unfortunately undeniable that the Chinese parentage of the various European health passes and of the EU digital Covid-19 certificate is obvious.
This filiation has moreover, at least in France, been assumed in several parliamentary and senatorial reports, including that of Mounir Mahjoubi, deputy (LREM) for Paris, former president of the National Digital Council and former Secretary of State in charge of digital ,
“Tracing mobile data in the fight against Covid-19”,
or even the report of the Senate’s forward-looking delegation on
“health crises and digital tools”
which unfortunately received little media attention .
.
Read alsoCyrille Dalmont: “The vaccination pass and the gears of citizen rating”
In addition, the QR Code is at the heart of the reactor of the establishment of the "social credit" system in China.
This “scoring” system (social rating) making it possible to trace populations and their social interactions is based on a logic of prior authorization.
The "good citizen" one who respects to the letter the obligations imposed on him by the Chinese regime and can have access to certain rights (work, travel, leisure, housing, health, credits), the "bad citizen" whose social note is too low has these remote rights disabled.
The massive use of QR codes to feed the databases necessary for the operation of this system.
It is now increasingly clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has enabled the acceleration of the European Commission's timetable allowing the establishment of a system of social control and prior authorization for European populations.
Cyrille Dalmont
It is now increasingly clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has enabled the acceleration of the European Commission's timetable allowing the establishment of a system of social control and prior authorization for European populations.
The Thomas More Institute has demonstrated this in your columns without causing much excitement.
It's a complete civilizational shift.
Unfortunately, our Western societies, disillusioned by decades of democratic collapse, seem if not to accept it, at least to resign.
Isn't it a simple tool to simplify administrative procedures, which are often opaque in France?
Digital tools effectively make it possible to simplify many administrative procedures and speed up their processing.
This is also the argument developed by the European Commission for the deployment of the European digital identity and the logic of the platform state.
The concept of a platform State aimed at transforming the State into a platform of services allowing the aggregation of a multitude of daily procedures in a single and unique interface (Taxes, fines, social security, etc.) but also private (bank, rents, schools ).
There are very positive aspects to this concept.
In particular the responsiveness and the feeling of mastering one's procedures.
There is, however, a flip side to this coin.
The creation of'