The France Identity application will soon take its first steps on iOS. Before the launch in the next few days of the beta which will be open to 2,500 testers, we were able to try an alpha version reserved for a more limited audience.
France Identity, it is the new government application that will serve as a digital duplicate of the biometric identity card. The medium-term objective is for you to be able to withdraw a package or prove your majority using this application. In the short term, during the beta phase, the app will be limited to the creation of single-use credentials and means of online authentication.
To try out the alpha version, we needed two things: an iPhone running iOS 16 and a national electronic identity card (CNIe), the one in credit card format that is distributed since last year. An iPhone under iOS 16, that’s not a problem at iGeneration, we don’t miss it, on the other hand a biometric identity card, it was played with little. In our team of about ten people, only one lucky person has the CNIe. These prerequisites will also apply to the beta and the final version of France Identity.
A series of startup checks
Equipped with an iPhone 13 mini running iOS 16 and a CNIe, full speed ahead for the configuration. After the welcome screen which presents the essential information, you authorize access to the camera in order to be able to scan your card with it. If for one reason or another you cannot use the camera, you can do this step without: you must then manually enter a six-digit number listed at the bottom right of the identity card.
