Mexican Allies Raise Alarms About New Mass Surveillance Laws, Call for International Support

The Mexican government passed a package of outrageously privacy-invasive laws in July that gives both civil and military law enforcement forces access to troves of personal data and forces every individual to turn over biometric information regardless of any suspicion of crime.   

The laws create a new interconnected intelligence system dubbed the Central Intelligence Platform, under which intelligence and security agencies at all levels of government—federal, state and municipal—have the power to access, from any entity public or private, personal information for “intelligence purposes,” including license plate numbers, biometric information, telephone details that allow the identification of individuals, financial, banking, and health records, public and private property records, tax data, and more. 

You read that right. Banks’ customer information databases? Straight into the platform. Hospital patient records? Same thing. 

The laws were ostensively passed in the name of gathering intelligence to fight high-impact crime. Civil society organizations, including our partners RD3 and Article 19 Mexico, have raised alarms about the bills—as R3D put it, these new laws establish an uncontrolled system of surveillance and social control that goes against privacy and free expression rights and the presumption of innocence.  

In a concept note made public recently, RD3 breaks down exactly how bad the bills are. The General Population Act forces every person in Mexico to enroll in a mandatory biometric ID system with fingerprints and a photo. Under the law, public and private entities are required to ask for the ID for any transaction or access to services, such as banking, healthcare, education, and access to social programs. All data generated through the ID mandate will feed into a new Unique Identity Platform under the Disappeared Persons Act.  

The use of biometric IDs creates a system for tracking activities of the population—also accessible through the Central Intelligence Platform.  

The Telecommunications Act requires telecom companies to create a registry that connects people’s phone numbers with their biometric ID held by the government and cut services off to customers who won’t go along with the practice.  

It gets worse. 

The Intelligence Act explicitly guarantees the armed forces, through the National Guard, legal access to the Central Intelligence Platform, which enables real-time consultation of interconnected databases across sectors.  

Companies, both domestic and international, must either interconnect their databases or hand over information on request. Mexican authorities can share that information even with foreign governments. It also exempts judicial authorization requirements for certain types of surveillance and classifies the entire system as confidential, with criminal penalties for disclosure. All of this is allowed without any suspicion of a crime or prior judicial approval.  

We urge everyone to pay close attention to and support efforts to hold the Mexican government accountable for this egregious surveillance system. RD3 challenged the laws in court and international support is critical to raise awareness and push back.  As R3D put it, “collaboration is vital for the defense of human rights,” especially in the face of uncontrolled powers set by disproportionate laws.  

We couldn’t agree more and stand with our Mexican allies.