French egaming licences: the ID idée
A cornerstone of the French legalisation of online gambling, player authentication is central to the opening of a 'controlled' French e-gaming market opening by addressing the twin goals of the preservation of socia nd public order. Herve de Kermadec of French ID business Legigame takes you through what you'll need to do to get a licence.
A CORNERSTONE of the French legalisation of online gambling, player authentication is central to the opening of a ‘controlled’ French e-gaming market opening, by addressing the twin goals of the preservation of social order, by protecting players and combating addiction, and preserving public order by fighting fraud and money laundering.
During the deliberations at the Senate late last month, senators approved the French e-gaming regulation bill, reinforcing their requirements regarding player authentication matters.
Article number 12 of the bill stipulates that egaming operators applying for licenses will have to control each new player’s identity, age, place of residence, and payment facility.
In particular, they will have to make sure of the identity of player and the associated bank account matches, as well of be able to guarantee the country of residence of the deposit bank.
Bill article number 35, meanwhile, aims to sanction (gaming operators not complying with their legal obligations, with penalties including license revocation.
In order to respect legal requirements, licensed operators will have to set a reliable and efficient authentication process.
When signing in, each new player will have to prove his or her identity by sending to the gaming operator copies of the following documents:
· Identity card, passport or driving license
· Bank account information
· Proof of place of residence
And if the French egaming regulator, ARJEL, follows the existing process of France’s historical monopoly operator, Française Des Jeux, licensed operators might then have to send an account activation code to the player once its documents have been controlled.
Setting a player authentication process is all the more complex since it implies both physical and digital flows, since formats received will be variable, and quality of scanned or copied document will often be low.
In fact, the process cannot be automated and it is necessary to operate manual controls to validate documents.
Moreover, as they containing sensitive data, identity documents will require to be archived with high security standards to allow the regulator to perform its audits.
This will be no less cumbersome than it sounds.
More than ever, operators are looking forward to the release of ARJEL’s full technical specifications, which should answer the remaining questions.