Topic summary
Mobile phone registration in Mexico
- Jalisco extermination camp
- Mexican fuel smuggling scandal
- Oaxaca train derailment
- 2026 Jalisco operation
- Politicians killed during her tenure
- Mobile phone registration
- Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz (father)
- Annie Pardo Cemo (mother)
- Jesús María Tarriba (husband)
- Carlos Ímaz (ex-husband)
Mobile phone registration in Mexico is the legal requirement that every active mobile telephone line in the country be linked to an identified holder. Under the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law of 2025 and guidelines issued by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) in December 2025, mobile operators may activate and maintain service only for lines associated with a subscriber who has presented official identification bearing a Unique Population Registry Code (CURP) for individuals or a Federal Taxpayer Registry number (RFC) for companies. The obligation applies to prepaid and postpaid lines, to both physical SIM cards and eSIMs, and to lines bought by foreign visitors, though not to travellers roaming on a foreign operator's service. Linking began on 9 January 2026.
The measure is the third Mexican attempt to end anonymous mobile telephony. A first registry, RENAUT, operated from 2009 until its repeal in 2011; roughly two-thirds of lines went unregistered, the database was leaked and offered for sale, and reported extortion rose during its operation. A second, PANAUT, required biometric data and was declared unconstitutional in its entirety by the Supreme Court of Mexico in April 2022, which held that it created a system of permanent and indiscriminate surveillance and failed a test of proportionality. The 2026 scheme was designed around that ruling: operators are forbidden to retain biometric data, photographs or copies of identity documents, and the government has said that subscriber information is held by the carriers rather than consolidated in a state database.
Registration proceeded more slowly than the government had planned. By the original deadline of 30 June 2026 fewer than half of Mexico's mobile lines had been linked, and the CRT replaced the deadline with a schedule staggered by the last digit of the telephone number, running from 15 August to 31 December 2026. The requirement has been challenged in more than ten thousand amparo suits, criticised by the digital rights organisation R3D, and opposed by the three main opposition parties in the Senate. President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the measure as a preventive step against extortion and fraud.