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Give me your fingerprints, I’ll sell you a mobile phone

February 11th, 2009 by , Filed under: Commentary, Culture, Gadgets, Physical Security, Privacy

There will be a new national register of mobile phone users in Mexico.

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.

(underlining added)

Mexico has a very strong culture of using prepaid phones.

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  • http://arturo-servin-research.blogspot.com/2009/02/feed-analysis.html Arturo Servin

    Hi,

    I am mexican but I am not living in Mexico today. I am not worry about this registry of mobile phones, what it worries me is the safety of this database. Honestly I am sure that the data will be very soon in the black market because a security hole in the government infrastructure or simply by means of corruption.

  • Joe Carioca

    Here is a security measure for avoiding the trouble in case your fingerprints end up in the black market:
    http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/18/howto-fake-a-fingerp.html

    :-)

  • http://secureportability.com Pathologist

    Here we go again!
    Fingerprints database in private hands.
    What shall happen to make them think?

  • http://www.priorityfocussecurity.com Jeremy Fetzer

    I see a huge intrusion into privacy with the requirement to provide fingerprints for a cell phone. What is the reason? Is there a security risk? I think this is just a part of our government’s far reach into limiting our right to privacy which will be an ongoing fight with the current administration. My business does Employee Screening background checks and if somebody is not working with children or access to classified information, we do not require fingerprints so why would a mobile phone company require it?

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