Mexico. The Mexican Senate approved the creation of a "National Registry of Mobile Phone Users", which has as a priority to require the registration of biometric data to contract a mobile telephone line and that reforms the Federal Law of Telecommunications and Broadcasting for the creation of this registry.
The bill, which was approved with 54 votes in favor, 49 against and 10 abstentions, seeks to curb crimes such as extortion and kidnappings that, in many cases, are committed with the use of cell phones.
A database will be created with information on the natural or legal persons, owners of each mobile telephone line, who have a number of the Fundamental Technical Numbering Plan, whose sole purpose is to collaborate with the competent authorities in matters of security and justice in matters related to the commission of illicit acts.
According to the reform, it will be integrated with the following data: mobile telephone line number, date and time of activation, full name of the user, nationality, official identification number with photograph and Unique Population Key of the owner of the line, as well as biometric data of the user.
The information contained in the National Register of Mobile Phone Users will be confidential and reserved, in the terms of the laws on transparency and protection of personal data.
The opinion provides that telecommunications concessionaires or, where appropriate, authorised concessionaires, shall infringe when they carry out the registration of a mobile telephone line number out of time; do not register the number; or make improper use of records, documents and other means of identification.
It is also considered infractions to alter, omit, simulate or allow records or notices in an illicit way, register false data, provide false information or provide information to users or third parties who do not have the right, access without authorization to the information of the Register or not report any irregularity having the obligation to do so.
The president of the Communications and Transportation Commission, Lucía Meza Guzmán, reported that, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, in 2019, 88.9 percent of extortions were carried out by telephone. These crimes, he warned, generate more than 12 billion pesos a year for organized crime.
Given this scenario, the senator said, the proposal seeks to give greater control and tools to the authorities to prevent the misuse of telephone lines.
The president of the Legislative Studies Commission, Manuel Añorve Baños, stated that "with the creation of this figure, I have no doubt, the competent authorities will have more normative elements to identify the commission of a crime."
For Movimiento Ciudadano, Senator Noé Castañón Ramírez assured that the ruling, rather than helping to combat crime, will encourage other types of illicit activities and generate unnecessary expenditure on the part of the federal government, for the creation of the register.
Ricardo Velázquez Meza, senator of Morena, said that this measure does not violate the personal data of users, but tries to amend a problem that previous governments did not want to address, "for not touching their interests with telecommunications companies."
The senator of National Action, Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, warned that the reform "promotes a system of surveillance and harassment unworthy of a democratic country", which transgresses freedom of communication, violates human rights and the privacy of personal data.
On behalf of PT, Senator Joel Padilla Peña said that there is great concern because this reform invades privacy, as it does not include mechanisms to protect personal data.
Source: Senate of the Republic of Mexico.
