Should Cell Phones be Registered?

It depends on what the government is tracking: bona fide criminal activities vs. consensual activities that harm no one else and merely challenge the prudish tastes of bluenoses and the like.

I think I saw somewhere that new cell phones are being outfitted with GPS tracking devices already so I don't see any reason for registering them. Eventually the old cell phones give out or get wet and you have to get a new one anyway.

Actually Cell phone by using radio/microwave transmission technology means they are already under the province of the FCC. We know who all the operators of radio and TV stations are and a huge amount of information about them, and this has not been a probelm for people. The government should require a probram of registration of cell phone for multiple reasons.

1) burn phones are primarily used by drug dealers and or illicit groups, this would make it harder for them to communicate without knowing who is communicating to who. Thus you could back track potential illegalities and show a history, we would be able to identify those who are actively involved in large scale operations and those who are really first timer minor players (rather than jailing them all as major offenders) without having to invade their privacy for decades with wire taps (which are already used under secret court orders). Someone used to have to be the registered owner for the old hard line telephones, and those were radio based transmitters/receivers.

2) if registered, the telephone could be disabled if it were stolen, offering better property protection for the owners.

3) The government could enforce better protection to the consumers, since registration would not be a voluntary thing that people don't do when owning a cell phone.

3) registration does not necessarily require gps tracking. Though they can already legally locate a cell phone transmission through radio triangulations anyways, without a court order. Registration would just mean you would be required to have someones name attached to the phone, thus no more readily available burn phones for criminals, since they would have to show some form of identification to own a cell phone (everyone is legally required to carry legal identification by nearly every States Law already anyways).

"We know who all the operators of radio and TV stations are and a huge amount of information about them, and this has not been a probelm for people".. Well, You'll hardly ever receive a threatening call over a TV or radio station.

1)What do you mean by "burn phones? I asume that they can be discarded once utilized? If so, then the criminals are going to steal phones, do business and make it look like YOU did it.

2) How do you protect a property that has already been stolen?

3)Please explain to me, how, by making it an obligation, will enforce better protection to the consumers.

3)You don't have to go anywhere and show your ID in order for you to register an already owned phone; and you're not required to carry one either. Remember that the OP is about Mexico.

Yahlasit

Well if they steal phones they have too use them before reported stolen to use them, so not much of a black market there. It is definitely harder to steal cell phone to use for criminal conspiracies then to walk down to the corner and buy 5 pre-paid phones that have no registration. Actually, if you think about it, the vast majority of law abiding people already register their cell phones since they can not afford to buy disposable phones repeatedly, they just buy one cell phone and keep it on a long term service contract, where a huge amount of information is already publicly available. so basically, the law abiding people already accept the infringement into their privacy in order to meet contractual requirements for a service provider to provide continued service. It is like buying and operating a car, the general public has all their cars they operate registered and legal "registration" of ownership that is recorded with the government. Cars are stolen, yes, but if found they can sometimes use the history of the vehicle after it has been disposed of to other parties to back track the thieves. Registered vehicle create a process of tracking property that makes resale much more complicated and re-use more problematic. If a person is caught with stolen items they can be prosecuted, and they will likely give the police the seller for a deal on sentencing, which leads to a trail from the back end of the process back to the thieves. Someone streals your telephone now for something illicit or not, you can call in and tell the service provider when it went missing and have the service shut off. Providers do this voluntarily, so they shut it off when they want to and can fight you over charges. A legal registration gives a degree of government involvement and a mandated requirement for providers to shut off service to stolen telephones when reported properly (plus it couls afford some greater protections to those who have had telephones stolen as all the providers want is the money for the services who ever has to pay). It is likely that under government registration the providers will eventually be forced to take a more pro-active possition of stolen items, as they have the capabilities to track these items quite readily with little effort, but there is no profit or regulatory impetus for them to currently do such a thing. Registration could also mean a better likelihood of return on some items as unkowing persons buying stolen items would then know for sure they were stolen when they went to register them, and they could identify the sellers of these stolen items. additionally lost telephones might be returned to the owners more readily since notification would be easier. Registration is not gps tracking of the cell phone or a constant traingulation, it is just a process by which we know who owns what properties, like your car, house, etc. already are.

I agree, if things were like they should be, but they're not; if such data base can be wrongfuly used, it surely will be.

All you have said needs no justification, it perfectly makes sense; but given the social conditions in Mexico, who knows whose hands it will go soon.

Long before the cartels war and Calderon's megalomaniac decisions, the IFE's (federal institute of elections) database was available at the black market for a few hundred bucks, it was used back then by insurance companies and retirement funds investors to track you (oh yes, they could easily find you) and offer you their services.

But it soon became a tool for gunmen, some of they were captured having it on CDs.

Oh well, it IS already in process, so I'll let you know how is it going for us, once completed.

Yahlasit

Seems a little extreme for terrorist, drug dealers and kidnappers to seek people out based on the ownership of a cell phone. A database of owbnership might be similar to gun registration or vehicle registration, it would just show the relevant information as to who owns it mailing address, etc. and they would show picture identification when ownership was verified and at registration. Doesn't every citizen in mexico have to carry some form of picture identification (it is the law in every State in the US, though checking is frequently become unenforced except for a few caucasians and african americans due to issues revolving around illegal immigration).

I do not know what extent of registering.

What would be the difference between that and a landline?

No...

Once we had a free country but now is almost freeless. Not much can be done without a permit or license, sad.

No more laws until we use what we've got already.

We live in a fascist society and have been since WWI.

Actually, we would be less fascist than we were before WWI. Fascism is a corporate socialized totalitarian form of government. If you consider how the US government and the UK also behaved with regards for the general publics rights relative to corporations before WWI as to now, you would realize that in the Late 1800s they greatly favored the corporate benefit over the public or the individual citizen. The governments would send in the Military to break individuals or groups of people, indigenous peoples, obstructionist landholders, unionizers,etc. from rising up agaisnt injustices conducted by corporations, railroads, coal companies, steel companies, early auto companies. Also the governments would finance efforts by corporations through collected taxes, whether it was funding warfare for the benefit of large corporations, taking huge tracts lands from private citizens and paying less than market value to these owners to give to those corporations or corporate executives for free (even allowing the resale later by those corporations), financing rebellions by unpopular groups to usurp indigenous govrnments to install governments freindlier to a specific corporation, etc..

I think what you really mean to say is that we are a much more socialistic society, which can also be totalitarian. Favoring the greater good to the masses, particularly the poor, over the "rights" of an individual is indicative of socialism (and taken to the extreme communism)

In Gaza, they trace legally elected people, who use their cell phone and send a missile to kill them (without any trail) …

What's to register? The device is already known to the network by the phone number and serial number (used to register the device with hen network and authorize services) and law enforcement officials can get the information and tap phones (with a court order) just like they do regular wire line phones.

In order to be anonymous, the criminal has to steal a phone and use it before it is reported, or create the account with the phone company using a fraudulent identity. How would that change if the government required registration?

In the "old days" it was possible to spoof the network (make the network think another phone was calling and bill somebody else's account) but with the advent of the digital networks, the authentication process is more complex and more secure.

Those are the technical issues. Other commentators on this blog have well addressed the personal privacy and freedoms issues.

I will 'register' my cell phone when I 'register' my guns.

Both are already done, and traceable, upon purchase unless done illegally in the first place (or pay as you go, purchased with cash only, with cell phones and using a false ID upon activation of the EIN. A lot of trouble and potentially fraud.)

So much for getting the criminals in line.

Remember that this is the same Mexican government that doesn't like the new Arizona law SB1070, but who implement and enforce much more Draconian laws. Also, the question was regarding Mexican Law, not US Law.

Regarding Gaza, these are the same elected terrorists that send missiles into Jewish neighborhoods for indiscriminate murder and mayhem to terrorize a civilian population, because they aren't Muslim. The difference is that the IDF is using the GPS signal from the cellphone, not registering them like the Mexican government wants to do. The problem with registration, is that only the law-abiding will do this or be forced to, just like with guns, but criminals won't follow the law. Go figure!?

If the criminals don't follow this law, their cell phones won't work, but they can however provide false information to the service provider* and let the government track Doroteo Arango.

But the real threat that lies behind this, is your information being disclosed, it is already annoying when other mobile phone companies call to ask you to switch to them. How they got your number? Well, someone sold them the database of your service provider. Just imagine what will happen when the criminals acquire such databases, and this is exactly what will happen when this heavily crime-infiltered government takes control of the information.

You can't but sit and wait for extortion calls, express kidnapping calls, threatening calls... oh, and your mother in law comming to stay a few weeks.

I know what I'm talking about, I live in Ciudad Juarez and see how widespread is this cancer (besides MANY other criminal activities).

Yahlasit

*Yes, the service provider, it's his responsability not to sell unregistered phones.

...and who says it is not common practice\done already, as we "speak"?

Only after black boxes are installed in all automobiles.

California will have black boxes soon. (and then, so will everyone else by default.)

Mexico is just following the Spanish edict which came into full force last Novemberish.

As others have pointed out, not registering a 'pay as you go' phone results in your having a 'pay but you don't go' phone, and they cancel your number and keep the credit, just as they do if you only use the phone for emergencies - and don't have any emergencies.

There has been an increase in the number of drug takes by the Guardia Civil since then, but this may be co-incidental.

And how is "pay as you don't go" any different then the method that most people are already accustomed to paying for their personal hardline telephone services. It is really not like the infrastructural costs will be any less, thus the pay as you go method will require some basic costs for infrastructure reimbursements, it just sounds more like you are getting a deal. The only concern with the pay as you don't go method is that a service provide might charge exhorbitant fees to hike profits unreasonably, and a passive kind of conspiracy of irrational corporate fee hiking exhuberance may follow as other follow suit, but then again they could also just increase the cost for pay as you go start up costs. Registration doesn't really have anything to do with how you pay for or receive services, just like a car you must register your car, but that doesn't mandate how you provide fuel or maintenance to the vehicle (with some exceptions like smog).

I have been using "pay as you go" telephones for years here in Panama- strictly for legal purposes, mind you. By "pay as you go", I purchase a telephone and a chip, then purchase time as required. It is by far the cheapest way to acquire telephone services, because I do not have to sign a contract for services I never use. I have had to purchase "new" telephones on occasion (the old one died, or maybe was lost/stolen), and I have always been able to reclaim the original telephone number (which means the service provider has a means to kill the lost/stolen telephone). I have never had to register my "pay as you go" telephone, but I also know that, since I "advertise" the number broadly (using it in business), if any one wants to know who I am, all they have to do is look at the Internet. I doubt, however, that my service provider has any record whatsoever of who I am...

Sorry I'm late to this party!

I think it's safe to assume, that despite regulations to the contrary, every single VOIP call in the world is being recorded in digital form by some agency or another. And I'd wager that every old-fashioned circuit based (POTS) call that happens to traverse an ATM network is being recorded too.

objoke: Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me :^)

I'm not saying that anyone is listening, but the cost of storage is so low, it'd be foolish to assume the data is reaching the bit-bucket, when it might have "historical value" in the future. OK, OK enough of that.

Exactly what would be gained by requiring law abiding citizens to register their phones? About the same as requiring law abiding citizens to register their guns. Look at the crime statistics where legally registered weapons are used and you'll see that either bee stings or lightening kill more people annually.

No, registration has *nothing* to do with public safety, registration is about consolidating power, and oppressing the population. What will happen when registration is demanded? That's easy, the criminals will learn the techniques to operate unregistered zombie phones on the network.

That forces the cell operators to bear the cost burden, write off the losses against their taxes, and to make up for the losses they will be quickly and efficiently passed on to the law abiding folks. Net result the criminals are again enriched at the expense of the people. At least the criminals are buying burn phones and paying something for the privilege of using the cell network and contributing to GDP ;^)

Then there is leakage the other way. As more and more people discover the availability of unregistered phones, they will seek them out, if for no other reason than to escape the rising cost and declining quality of the paid cell network. This is the path to anarchy, ANARCHY I say!

So, getting down to the issue that is truly vile and offensive...

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from an investigation."

Wow!, that's the attitude that churns my stomach! {RCE, I'd have a private talk with you on that... just kidding.} I don't know how such foetid attitudes arose in this country, or in the rest of the free world, but those attitudes didn't work so well under Mao in China during the 40's, or Soviet Russia under Stalin, or NAZI Germany, Cambodia in '75, etc, etc, etc...

Face it, Mexico is a 3rd world country. Should we be looking to them as an example?

I can accept that my privacy is non-existent every time I pick up the phone or post a comment. But I choose to do these things, and I'm aware of the possibility, and hope to never experience the consequences, of a totalitarian regime making an example out of me. That is why I'm vocal about the rights that are being trampled. The more people that are aware, the less likely they will all be rounded up. {sometimes there is safety in the crowd}

In Liberty!