TMCnet has reported on these pages before about criminals who leverage technology to carry out their plans – whether it’s a 33-year-old engineer who steals trade secrets from the world’s largest chip-maker or a Chinese group that allegedly created more than $2 billion worth of technologically advanced but counterfeit Microsoft Corp. software.
Today, crime-fighters in Mexico reportedly are turning the tables on their prey, calling for a national register of mobile phone users that will include fingerprints that law enforcement officials hope to use to catch kidnappers and extortionists.
According to Reuters (News - Alert) reporter Tomas Sarmiento, a new law this week that will take effect in April will require mobile phone companies to create a database of clients that includes fingerprints.
Most of the North American nation’s cell phones are bought with prepaid minutes, preventing law enforcement officials from matching numbers to individual owners.
“Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims is rising sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from an army crackdown, seek new income,” Sarmiento reports. “Lawmakers who pushed the bill through Congress last year say there are around 700 criminal bands in Mexico, some of them operating from prison cells, that use cell phones to extract extortion and kidnap ransom payments.”
With the register, new subscribers will be fingerprinted upon buying a handset.
Is it going to work? Nobody knows. Would a criminal knowingly have himself or herself fingerprinted when purchasing a phone he or she intends to use to extort money?
Stranger things have happened, but it isn’t clear, according to Sarmiento, whether the Mexican government will fund its initiative.
“The plan also requires operators to store all cell phone information such as call logs, text and voice messages, for one year,” Reuters reports. “Information on users and calls will remain private and only available with court approval to track down criminals.”
The closest case I’ve ever heard of, where crime-fighters leverage cell phone technology to catch criminals, appeared on HBO’s brilliant series “The Wire” which follows Baltimore narcotics and homicide cops and their pursuit of the city’s drug traders (pictured right).
Some officials appear skeptical about Mexico’s plan.
Former Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz, head of the local unit of Spain’s Telefonica, has decried the law, Sarmiento said, claiming it will only create more bureaucracy for operators.
“Lawmakers say phone users must immediately report lost or loaned phones to avoid being held responsible for a handset used in a crime,” Sarmiento reports.
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