Although the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) invalidated the National Registry of Mobile Telephony Users (panaut) for being unconstitutional, Raúl Sapién, president of the National Private Security Council (CNSP), considered that legislation is still necessary to protect the personal data of citizens and regulate the lack of control in the sale of mobile phone chips that are used to commit crimes.
In an interview, he argued that currently 15 to 18 different chips are used to commit a hijack, while the extortions come from more than 220,000 telephone numbers whose identity is unknown. “The regulated sale of chips is necessary to combat crime and the collection of the right of floor in Mexico,” she said.
He considered that the federal government can insist on the issue by presenting a new initiative to Congress, but on this occasion that guarantee the protection of the database, which -he proposed- could operate the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI). A multidisciplinary group with experts emerged to draft the new initiative.
The CNSP It is the most important group of security businessmen in Mexico, with a national interlocutor with local, federal and legislative authorities.
“The declaration of unconstitutionality of the reforms to the law is worrying, because it returns us to the problem that is currently being presented of extortion and telephone fraud. (…) Today it remains headless again, in regulatory limbo, that it is not possible to know the traceability of the misuse that is given to telephone lines. Today a weapon can be as deadly as a cell phone. Through him extortion, bank fraud, kidnapping are carried out,” said Sapién.
“In 2018, a maximum of 12,000 million pesos was reached for telephone extortions, for specific victims, that is, they paid what their extortionists were requesting. It should be noted that only 16.5% of mobile telephone lines are through a fixed plan, that is, they do have a first and last name; 83.5% belong to the prepaid system, the user who uses them is not identifiable”, he argued.
He proposed that while new legislation is being built, the federal government should commit to blocking the signal inside the social rehabilitation centers where most of the extortion calls come from, a situation pending since 2009. However, he said that this has not been possible because the blockade also affects inhabitants of the surrounding areas.
He recognized that, with the prior order of a judge, the security and judicial authorities currently have mechanisms to track mobile phones. However, he considered it imperative that the authorities know the identity of the user, since the chips are sold wholesale, even at bus stations. Metro Collective Transportation System. He stated that biometric data is already required in banks, self-service stores, government services, among others.
“A new reform must be elaborated to these articles of the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law care the points on which the declaration of unconstitutionality issued by the SCJN deals, guaranteeing the security of the biometric data that is collected”
On the argument that showed the SCJN to invalidate the Panaut, in the sense that there was already a registry of telephone lines that did not work and its registry was sold on the internet (the Renaut), Raúl Sapién argued that “the same is happening with other personal data protection issues. , the very accounts of the companies are left vulnerable, the computer systems of public companies are hacked and there is a serious gap in cybersecurity”.