French politicians are looking at how to best utilise facial recognition technologies.  Over the summer French the interior ministry unveiled a new app, Alicem, allowing individuals with a biometric passport or electronic residence permit to identify themselves over the internet using the app.

Macron’s government are also planning to “supervise and assess” how else to use the technology.

However critics warn that Alicem is a step closer to a Chinese-style surveillance program, with questions asked as to how the data will be collected and used.

French authorities also want to harness the technology in the fight against terrorism and crime.

However the technology is still not perfect, and in a recent incident in London facial recognition technology resulted in the arrest of an innocent man.

Experts also warn about the threat hackers pose to huge data bases which contain the biomimetic data of individuals. They argue terrorists could hack such a database and remove information for a wanted criminal replacing it with that of an innocent individual. Pointing out that we are unable to maintain the security of peoples personal financial data; how can we expect to protect a persons facial identity?

Read More: France 24