Increase in number of driving fines sent via email

Residents in France are regularly warned to watch out for fraudulent emails asking us to click on links to make payments.

Read more: Government warning about scammers pretending to be French authorities

However, driving penalty fines are now frequently sent this way to save paper. 

The official agency in charge of sending out automatic fines Antai (Agence nationale de traitement automatisé des infractions) now lists three situations where it sends e-fines. 

These are: 

• if you were issued an on-the-spot fine and gave your email address to an officer; 
• you were designated by a third party (this could be a person who lent you their car, a hire firm or an employer) as the responsible driver
• Where the driving authority ANTS (also now known as France Titres) has previously recorded your email address linked to car registration formalities

If you receive such an email, you are not obliged to respond to it. 

If you ignore it for a week, a traditional paper fine will be sent instead. 

How do I spot an authentic fine sent via email?

Note however that fine notices are never sent by text. Scammers often send out fake messages claiming you have a fine to pay, asking you to click on a fraudulent link.

To make sure the email is legitimate look at the sender address. It should come from the following address: nepasrepondre_noreply@antai.fr. 

It will ask you to click a link to a site with an address starting with usagers.antai.gouv.fr.

You should be able to see this by hovering your mouse over the link. 

You need to visit this and click a box saying you accept receiving the fine this way if you do not want a paper fine.

You can then access the fine and print or save it.

Read more: Can I find details of any driving fines in France online?