In his general policy speech, Michel Barnier declared, Tuesday October 1, that he wanted to secure the Vitale card, without giving further details. Biometric vital cards, file crossing, use of AI, different proposals are already on the table.
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The Prime Minister did not detail, Tuesday October 1 in his general policy declaration, his battle plan to secure the Vitale card, but this is a subject on which several projects have already been initiated. In spring 2023, for example, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs and the General Inspectorate of Finance were tasked with studying the feasibility of a biometric Vitale card. That is to say a card capable of authenticating its owner, either by his fingerprints, or by merging it with the national identity card. The objective being to avoid undue payment of allowances. The report concluded that this would be very expensive to implement, for a fairly low benefit, since, according to the rapporteurs, identity fraud concerns less than ten cases per year, for amounts of a few million euros. ‘euros.
Last week, however, the High Council for Financing Social Protection estimated social fraud at 13 billion euros. A fraud which would originate mainly from professionals and health establishments. We are talking about overbilling for procedures, fictitious care or even hearing aid reimbursement fraud. This represents three-quarters of the violations observed. As for individuals, these most often involve false declarations of resources.
The administration has given more resources to anti-fraud services. In particular, data analysis, file cross-referencing and even artificial intelligence tools to simplify the work. Health Insurance now also has cyber investigators who track the trafficking of false prescriptions, work stoppages and medicines on the internet. An initiative which is starting to bear fruit, since 50% additional fraud has been detected in 2023.
The “Carte Vitale” application, currently being tested, cannot help against this fraud. Its objective is not to secure or replace the physical card, but simply to dematerialize it. It must be seen, above all, as a convenience tool to have your card permanently in your phone and avoid forgetting it. Everyone will be able to activate it in 2025.