You will soon be able to connect to FranceConnect with the France Identity app without having to scan your identity card! A welcome and much-awaited simplification for using the public services authentication platform.
As it had promised, the Government is continuing the digitalization of public services with France Identity. Associated with the SGIN, the Digital Identity Guarantee Service, this mobile application aims, ultimately, to replace the physical identity card with a digital equivalent, stored on a smartphone. It also supports the digital driving license and, soon, the Vitale card. This is really practical since the service joined, in November 2022, FranceConnect, the platform which allows any citizen to easily identify themselves with more thana thousand online servicespublic or private (Ameli, Impôts, La Poste, MaPrimeRénov’, CAF, Pôle emploi, Yris, MSA, etc.), in order to reinforce the security of the connection (see our article).
Indeed, to connect to all these sites, the user simply needs a six-digit code and their digital identity card. However, this is not the most practical, since you have to place your physical identity card – the new national electronic identity card (CNIe), in credit card format, which includes a chip and a QR code – on his smartphone every time. But that will soon be history! The Government announced, in a press release, testing in the beta version the possibility of activating FranceConnect authentication without having to take out your identity card each time. A simple authentication by biometrics, pattern or unlock code in the application will suffice.
France Identity: a simpler process for connecting to FranceConnect
With this new function, France Identity will therefore adopt the method of unlocking the user’s smartphone in order to authenticate it on sites compatible with FranceConnect. Validation will therefore be done either via a code, a diagram, fingerprint or facial recognition. Finally, a bit like what banking applications have implemented, which use validation for each transaction.
To benefit from this new authentication method, you must register for the application’s beta program through this link TestFlight from an iPhone or this Play Store link from an Android device. When you first open the new version of France Identity. the application will then ask you to activate FranceConnect authentication by scanning your identity card. Thereafter, authentications will work every time with the device unlock method. There will no longer be any need to scan your card! Then, from any site supporting FranceConnect, simply choose the France Identity option and scan a QR code from the application. The connection will then be immediate.
France Identity highlights the simplicity of the new authentication method on FranceConnect, which no longer requires using NFC and its “random” use, offering only “navigation”smoother and faster“. Please note, if using several devices, you will have to repeat the registration of the CNIe on each of them. In addition, authentication by FranceConnect+ – to access services My Account Training, INPI or still Ma Prime Renov – will still require use of the digital identity card.