Law approved that grants access to personal data

Morena and allies approve the Intelligence Law, which gives the SSPC and the National Guard access to personal databases. The opposition accuses it of creating a spy regime.

The Chamber of Deputies approved a controversial law creating the National Investigation and Intelligence System. The reform grants the Ministry of Security and the National Guard the authority to access citizens' personal, biometric, and fiscal databases.

In a session that lasted more than seven hours, the Morena majority and its allies in the Chamber of Deputies approved the new Law on the National System of Investigation and Intelligence in Public Security Matters. The legislation, presented as a fundamental tool to combat organized crime, has unleashed a storm of criticism from the opposition and civil society organizations, who describe it as a direct threat to privacy and a blank check for state espionage.

What Does the New Law Allow?

The core of the controversy lies in the broad powers it grants to the State. The law represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between the government and citizens' data, moving from a model where a court order is required to access specific information to one where the State will have proactive and massive access to information.

As approved, the Executive Branch, through the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) and the National Guard, will be able to "consult, access, process, systematize, analyze, and use" citizens' personal data.

To achieve this, a "central intelligence platform" will be created. This platform will interconnect and systematize databases from all levels of government (federal, state, and municipal) and even private entities. The information that can be integrated includes:

* Vehicle registrations

* Biometric data (fingerprints, facial recognition)

* Real estate and cadastral information

* Tax records (SAT)

* Telephone data

* And any other database deemed relevant to public safety.

The Government's Justification: "It's to Prosecute Criminals"

Proponents of the law argue that it is an indispensable tool in the fight against organized crime. Representative Ricardo Sóstenes Mejía Berdeja, of the Workers' Party (PT), stated that the system will provide the SSPC with the necessary tools to pursue criminals and that "it is essential to employ all technological resources."

For her part, Representative Sandra Anaya Villegas, of Morena, asserted that the law will help "prevent and combat crimes" and that "technology will be used to ensure that people's human rights are not violated," insisting that intelligence will be used to promote peace, not against democracy.

"It's the legal mechanism to justify spying; we will all be spied on. It seeks to impose a totalitarian regime that wants to control us. The law is a threat to the right to privacy and intimacy." – Representative María Elena Pérez-Jaén Zermeño (PAN).

The Opposition Alert: "A Spy Regime"

The opposition has been resounding in its rejection. PAN representative María Elena Pérez-Jaén Zermeño issued one of the harshest warnings, calling the law "scrupulous" and a "mechanism to justify spying" that threatens to "expose the lives of Mexicans."

The PRI, in turn, denounced the law as "perverse" and establishes a system of "maximum surveillance" without judicial controls or checks and balances, granting the executive branch "absolute power over public and private information" to build an "authoritarian state."

The Ghosts of the Past: RENAUT and PANAUT

Concerns about this new law are compounded by previous failures. In 2011, the National Registry of Telecommunications Users (RENAUT) was eliminated after its database was compromised and put up for sale on the black market. More recently, in 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice declared the National Registry of Mobile Telephone Users (PANAUT), a similar project, unconstitutional for violating the right to privacy.

The creation of this massive new "honeypot" of centralized data not only raises fears about state espionage, but also about its vulnerability. A security breach could give criminal organizations the most powerful intelligence tool ever created, with access to biometric, financial, and location data on millions of Mexicans.