France

Concepts

Identity-related crime concerns in France mainly focus on document and financial fraud. The former arose from the debate on the introduction of a national electronic identification card. The main arguments advanced by the government for such a card mainly rely on the need to fight document fraud. A secure document and handout procedure are foreseen as an adequate means to combat false identity documents and the use of false identities based on authentic documents.

Concerns with regard to financial fraud and more particularly credit card fraud arise from the fact that 80% of on-line payments are done by credit cards, which are also largely used as identifiers in e-commerce. A report issued by the Observatory for Payment Card Security [Observatoire de la sécurité des cartes de paiements] showed that the amount of fraudulent payments by credit card amounted to 252,6 M€ in 2006. Some attention has also been brought to the problem raised by phishing as several French banks and their clients have been victims of such practices, which ignited a strong response.

It follows that the debate mainly relates to what FIDIS researchers identified as “unlawful identity takeover”, i.e. the “fraud or another unlawful activity where the identity of an existing person is used as a target or principal tool without the person’s consent” and, to a lesser extent, unlawful identity delegation or creation.

In view of these threats, public and private actors have tried to give appropriate answers to identity-related crimes, whose concerns have been revived by the rise of the Internet and the spread of new technologies. Legal, technical and organisational measures have been taken by public authorities, financial institutions and online merchants to fight identity fraud and empower citizens to prevent or defend themselves against abuses.

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