Monday Evening Links > Mexico to fingerprint all mobile phone users

Mexico will start a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprinting all customers in an effort to catch criminals who use the devices to extort money and negotiate kidnapping ransoms.

Under a new law published on Monday and due to be in force in April, mobile phone companies will have a year to build up a database of their clients, complete with fingerprints. The idea would be to match calls and messages to the phones' owners.

Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income.

The register, detailed in the government's official gazette, means new subscribers will now be fingerprinted when they buy a handset or phone contract.

The plan also requires operators to store all cell phone information such as call logs, text and voice messages, for one year. Information on users and calls will remain private and only available with court approval to track down criminals.

Billionaire Carlos Slim, who controls Mexico's No. 1 cell phone operator America Movil, said the law would be more useful if it tracked the movements of cell phone users. "What needs to be done is another type of more effective measures," Slim told reporters.

Lawmakers say phone users must immediately report lost or loaned phones to avoid being held responsible for a handset used in a crime.

said by Nightshade:

Wow! You got that right. That is just unreal. You know it is things like this that make me glad that I live in the US. Nothing like this will ever fly in our government and the citizens will not stand for something like this.