Discussing electronic identities in Nicosia

The divide is absolute.  North and south use different languages and different currencies, and day-to-day communication on the ground is limited, though a few border crossings were opened in 2003.  Below the political level, the two sides seem intent on ignoring one another.  On the southern side, the area close to the green zone in Nicosia's ancient heart is a warren of narrow streets; most of the buildings are falling into disrepair and are inhabited by immigrants seeking the lowest rents, or are used as low grade repair shops or for storage.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 after a complicated series of plots and political manoeuvrings culminating in a Turkish invasion.  There was ethnic cleansing and mass killing.  One huge question for Turkey, as it progresses towards EU membership, is what happened to around 1600 Greek Cypriots whose disappearances have remained unexplained for more than 30 years.

After more than three decades there is unsurprisingly a generational divide.  For older Greek Cypriots, the wounds are still raw.  For younger people, the political landscape is very different from that of their parents – Cyprus has joined the EU and the tendancy is to look towards Brussels and London, rather than warily eyeing Turkey.

The divide is reflected in Cypriot politics, with a widespread view among the young that old-guard politicians who were at the centre of events in the 1970s, are now a barrier to resolving the problem.  In 2006, the old technique of building a wall and ignoring one another seems out of date.

But one reason it is out of date is that there are now new ways of partitioning people.  I went to Nicosia to discuss electronic identity, something all EU member states, with encouragement from the European Commission, are working on or considering in one way or another.

The EU has, for example, set common standards for biometric identifiers to be incorporated in passports and other forms of electronic identity.  Countries like Belgium and Estonia already have advanced electronic identity schemes.  The United Kingdom is working on the mother of all identity card schemes, which will see a vast bank of data on the people of the U.K. collected by the state.

Electronic identity cards are promoted as a means of proving who you are, but in fact their real function is to prove what permissions you have.  They are a way of partitioning people, and have the potential to function according to the principles of old-style barriers of sandbags and barbed wire, though of course electronic permissions are far more sophisticated.

If you have the right permissions you can cross borders, work, get access to money, vote, drive.  An electronic identity card can even control access to certain buildings or areas in the same way that during a European Summit in Brussels, the right pass is needed to get into certain parts of town.

Electronic identities are a system of checkpoints – not the old-style checkpoint manned by a soldier with a gun, but a state-imposed, personalised checkpoint, carried by everyone.

The most advanced electronic identity schemes in Europe are already moving towards multiple functions.  In Belgium, some 3 million electronic cards have been distributed.  Future plans include integration of the identity card and the driving license – in other words, permission to drive can be given centrally, or taken away, by means of an electronic certificate on the card's chip.

It is important to realise that the potential for creating webs of permissions and individualising them exists on vast scale.  Any basic activity of modern life can be controlled by the swipe of a card: entering a building, getting money, accessing information on the Internet, driving a car, signing a contract.  There are no longer any technical barriers to electronic dictatorship based on electronic identities that govern daily life.  Only legal barriers remain.

The Cyprus partition will one day be solved – and hopefully without too many more years passing.  The green zone will be dismantled, the historic centre of Nicosia will be renovated, communities once separated will live together and the missing will be accounted for.  But electronic identities give governments new scope for dividing people depending on the permissions they allocate.  The drive of those in power to control personal freedom shows no sign of being dismantled.