It’s wrongheaded legislation gone wild! Monday saw a law passed in Mexico that will establish a national register of mobile users. Everyone who buys a cell phone from now on will be fingerprinted. Why, you ask? Because gangs use cell phones. Therefore, if you buy a cell phone, you may be a gang member. It’s all perfectly logical.
The idea, laudable in some ways, is to connect the phones used in kidnappings and drug deals with their owners. Fine. But fingerprinting every single person who buys a phone is using a steamroller when they should be using a scalpel. Why not crack down on fake IDs used to purchase burners, or reward mobile companies that successfully reduce fraudulent or illegal use? The current legislation is like pointing a gun at everybody you meet just in case they’re a werewolf.
I can tell you right now that there are a lot of people in Mexico now who are going to find ways of getting their mobile set up without putting down biometrics.
The violence in Mexico is getting completely out of hand. When you have the cartels beheading your police and military, its time to change your game plan. And although I hate the idea of the government adding ways to monitor what its people are doing, I also hate seeing what’s happening in Mexico continue unabated.
Considering how the violence is spilling into the US (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090209/ap_on_re_us/border_spillover_violence), I wouldn’t be surprised if US agencies are involved in tracking who’s buying what and (possibly/probably) listening in on calls.
To your last point, I’m sure people will learn ways to get phones set up without submitting fingerprints. That doesn’t mean there won’t be ways to track those too.
Ain’t that a blip!
Eh…I understand the “logic”, but they need to find some other way to police this sort of thing besides inconveniencing lots of regular people.
We will have the same thing here in South Africa, come 2010. The government tried to push the law through last year already, but the cellphone networks managed to get it postponed.
Besides the registration of any new cellphone under your details, you will also have to inform your local Police station if your cellphone and/or SIM card was lost or stolen. It will be a criminal offence to ignore this.
As with all similiar things they have tried here, it only looks good on paper. They do not have any clue of what the practical implications are going to be or how to implement this properly.
I’m mexican but i live in france. Here in france they have the same thing but without the fingerprint thing. When you buy a pay as you go phone, you need to provide a copy of your ID (with address, photo, etc..) within the first 2 weeks. If you don’t do that, your line is suspended.
I’m mexican (living in Spain, tho)
And being the most pro-privacy person you’ll probably meet, after spending the summer over there I have to admit this is what HAS to be done. Very difficult times require extraordinary measures. This isn’t like the US’s airport fearmongering crap, over there, people are getting killed. Like, real people. People close to me. I do hope Calderon has a longer-time strategy, as this alone won’t cut it. The whole police will have to be restructured (currently it’s little more than a placebo effect, where policemen enter the academy as an alternative to going to college and to secure a lifetime and relatively easy job). The military will have to do about the same. I see no easy way out of this.