AfterDawn: News

Mexico to force identity registration for mobile phone purchases

The Mexican government, in an effort to fight crime, has been urging residents to register their mobile phones and identities, however it appears that over 30 million line still have not and those will likely be shut down in the coming weeks.

The law was passed in 2009 "to stop criminals from using cellphones for extortion and to negotiate ransoms in kidnappings," says Reuters.



Critics of the law have called it ineffective, as criminals will now be more likely to pay off poor citizens to register the phones under their names.

America Movil, which controls 70 percent of the Mexican market, will lose about $10 million USD in revenue daily if those 30 million unregisterd lines are shutdown. The company has been trying to get an extension on the deadline for registering.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 10 Apr 2010 13:54

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• 6 comments

• jony218

  Maybe "America Movil" need to do a little extortion of there own, aka bribe somebody. That's how the game is played in Mexico, you go cheap on the bribe, your usually out of business.

  10.4.2010 16:35 #1

• Mysttic

  Or offer skit crates of Tequila

  10.4.2010 19:22 #2

• GryphB

  This will lead nowhere real fast. As a matter of fact, they'll probably do what the terrorists overseas do, purchase a crap load of prepaid cell phones.

  10.4.2010 22:35 #3

• bomber991

  Yeah, all that's going to happen is they'll ship drugs one way, and bring back prepaid phones coming the other way.

  11.4.2010 18:31 #4

• jeski

  The problem here is corruption, ¿Why give a corrupt government all your details? ¿How will they're using the info? Certainly they won't be doing any actual follow-up to catch the one's using prepaid cellphones for extortions (often police members).
  
  On other hand this system is s)/&, you do it by sms, so you can actually register to anyone with a SSN (CURP in Mexico).
  
  The two most important carriers have already protected themselves from having to cut the unregistered lines, so as usual no biggie.
  Even with a forced register on all cellphones they're so incompetent that it makes this registry more of a threat than a help, oh and of course tax payers are paying millions for this.

  15.4.2010 12:12 #5

• pmshah

  US is probably the most xenophobic country in the world. When I visit it I am fingerprinted, photographed and what have you I don't know how many times. The homeland security is in even worse state of terrorist fears.
  
  In spite of all this it is strange that I can walk in to any outlet and buy an unregistered mobile phone at any outlet without providing any identification. A system used by almost all criminals and terrorists.
  
  One should consider usage of mobile phones a privilege and not a fundamental right. If you don't like what requirements it entails simply do without it! Tough s**t.
  
  Here in India even the Chinese phones that do not have unique identification numbers - similar to mac address on PC's ethernet hardware - embedded are banned and not allowed to connect to the network. You can't wage a war on terror while being so lax in such fundamental safety feature.

  16.4.2010 02:11 #6