Filenews Vasos Vassiliou
From the summer of 2026, those who seek to trick the ID and passport issuance system, as a Turkish Cypriot who issued such documents five times, using different photos, did will simply find themselves exposed.
This is because the new software that will be implemented, around June next year, will have the ability to compare photos and "decide" on their authenticity.
As a representative of the Department of Population Archives explained before the Parliamentary Control Committee, the new system will be able to compare the photo (of the applicant) presented for the renewal of the identity card or passport, with the photo that already exists in the system from previous versions/renewals of documents. And of course, the officer who handles the issuance of each document will have the opportunity to judge whether he has the applicant before him.
After the case of the Turkish Cypriot (which was also mentioned in a report by the Auditor General), the competent services began to see more warmly the necessity to close the holes in the system.
As for what happened in this particular case, an official of the Population Registry Department informed the MPs that from 2006, when the existing control system operates, until 2023, a specific person had issued identity cards and passports by changing his photo. That is, he said, he used the same elements but used different photographs. He also said that when the specific case was identified, a gap was found in the process of checking the process of issuing identity cards and passports.
It is well known, he said, that it is a practice (which must be applied) to carry out identification, something that was not done in this case and explained: "You see the applicant in front of you, you see the photo he presents, you see the photo that is registered in the system and you act accordingly, this is the practice". As he said, when the gap was identified, a manual was prepared which is addressed to those who receive applications for identity cards and passports, recommending that they be strict in the checks they carry out.
