In July 2019, Quadrature du net, an association that defends fundamental freedoms in the digital environment, brought an action before the Conseil d'Etat against the decree authorising the Ministry of the Interior and the Agence nationale des titres sécurisés (ANTS) to develop the ALICEM smartphone application, the purpose of which is to certify the identity of users of public or partner teleservices using an authentication system based on facial recognition.

On 4 November 2020, the Conseil d'Etat dismissed the said action for annulment on the grounds that :

• At the date of the decree, there was no other way of authenticating a user's identity entirely electronically with the same level of guarantee as facial recognition, so the use of biometric data processing can be regarded as required by the purpose of the processing ;
• The teleservices concerned can also be accessed by users via the FranceConnect system, without facial recognition processing, their consent is therefore freely obtained and complies with the RGPD and the Data Protection Act;
• As the data collected, as described in the decree, is necessary for the identification and authentication of the user and is not communicated to teleservices providers, it is adequate and proportionate to the purpose of the processing.

La Quadrature du net considered that " this interpretation of the concept of "free and informed consent" ignores not only that of the CNIL but also that of the European Data Protection Committee "and critical the arbitrariness of this decision. "