Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Four Months On

One hundred twenty-five days after Mexico's cell-phone registration drive has begun, only 30 percent of the phones in the nation are registered. I'd guess that the overwhelming majority of those registered phones are new (the registration is mandatory for new phones), and an almost equally overwhelming majority of those with old phones haven't ever considered registering their number, wouldn't know how to do so in any event, and in many cases haven't heard anything about the cell-phone database. The registry strikes me as a somewhat unsettling idea, but more striking than the concept in and of itself has been the absolute lack of sustained publicity and explanation from the government.

4 comments:

boz said...

Am I supposed to register our two Mexican cell phones we have in a desk drawer here in Washington? Maybe I'll do it for fun once my big research project is over. Probably make an interesting blog post.

pc said...

Yeah I would think any cell with a Mexican phone chip would have to be registered. Not sure if you can do it from abroad, though. What's the research project, if you can tell?

Lesley said...

You're surprised by the lack of explanation from the government?

pc said...

I dont think it's too surprising, the government hasn't explained itself thoroughly on lots of stuff. But I do think it's noteworthy.