A man is known by his friends, the devil is known by his fiends
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Mexican mobile users to be fingerprinted
A NEW LAW is demanding that, as of April, Mexican mobile phone users are to be fingerprinted and treated like dirty criminals, in an attempt to foil violent crime and kidnappings.
Mobile phone companies have been told they have a year to build up a proper client database, complete with guacamole-stained prints.
The Mexican congress passed the bill after being told there were about 700 criminal bands in Mexico [Mariachi bands? - Ed], some who even had the audacity to order kidnappings, extortions and drug deals on their cell phones from prison.
The government reckons if it could only get its hands on mobile users' fingerprints, it could get right to work, busily matching menacing calls and chilling messages to the real owners of the devices. The one snag in the plan, however, is that the majority of Mexico's 80 million mobiles are prepaid handsets with pay-as-you-go SIMs.
To cleverly get around this minor setback, Mexican officials are insisting anyone who tries to buy a handset or take out a contract [phone contract, rather than the scarier, deadlier kind] will have their digits recorded. Literally.
As for unlucky chicos and chicas who just so happen to have been mugged for their phone, or who lent it to that dodgy Juan geezer from down the street, lawmakers recommend they let authorities know immediately, or risk a life of being beaten like a piñata, in a Mexican prison.
Under the new law, mobile operators will be forced to keep all call logs, as well as text and voice messages, for a whole year, but the masses of private data will apparently only ever be divulged if ordered by a court.
World's richest man and Mexican plutocrat Carlos Slim, owner of America Movil, seemed annoyed by the law, claiming it would be more useful if it tracked the movements of cell phone users, whilst Gil Diaz, head of a local unit of Spain's Telefonica, reckoned it would just cause a ton of unnecessary bureaucracy. µ
L'Inq
Reuters
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"Mobile phone companies have been told they have a year to build up a proper client database, complete with guacamole-stained prints."
Hey, Silvie, why do you find it necessary to utter racist statements such as that? I live in Mexico and if I saw you I would put you in a hospital.
Every time I read about a plan that affects people's freedom in the world, I ask myself who is behind this plan. It is quite obvious that this plan does not help to make Mexico a safer country. But it does give the Mexican government an excuse to fingerprint the entire nation and to create a huge database. Where does that database end up? The same government was also convinced that lie detector tests help to fight corruption in the legal system and police force. Convinced by WHOM? By the same people who built a wall at the Mexican border that is worse than the iron curtain was. Again, I am missing names in this article. Who is driving this plan, who are the affiliates?
Start by cleaning up the notoriously corrupt city, state and federal police forces, then take on the narco gangs that shoot, kidnap, torture and/or decapitate rivals, police officers, and unlucky bystanders.
Then get back to fingerprinting phone users in 2060 or so.
It is well known that cellphone towers in the northern states of Mexico are controlled and hacked by criminal gangs. If the operator fixes a certain tower, the burn it down. thus they get free calling and ID less use on stolen phones.
This plus the fact that SIMS can be cloned, and they don't even need to steal any phones, not to mention also that criminals frequently hit retail outlets to get new phones and prepaid SIM cards.
Totally pointless measure, goes to show you how clueless the goverment is in Mexico about telecomm and how to properly fight crime.
Criminals already use stolen phones.
This is for tracking everyone else.