The right to identity 2023/10/01

Of course, the former minister is right. Olga Sánchez Cordero By stating that we all have the right to identity and the imperative need for the realization of that right has been partially granted by an autonomous body of the government of the Republic; I am referring to the INE, which over many years has worked tirelessly to have a truly reliable registry. This arduous work has required a very large investment and the efforts of many people who have worked and continue to work there.

The problem is not minor because it is necessary to guarantee, through the articulation of very sophisticated security mechanisms, certainty regarding the existence of each registered person, such as authentication and making alteration of the database almost impossible. Doing so is very expensive and requires many efforts; which in that case derives from the need to provide security to the electoral processes. It is a substantive part of our democracy.

Of course, that does not mean that the government as a whole, through, for example, the Ministry of the Interior that is in charge of demographic issues, cannot articulate a mechanism to issue an ID for all of us who were born in national territory and identifies us in an indubitable way. Of course, this mechanism will surely be more complicated and probably more expensive, for the simple reason that it should be granted at birth and not until age 18 as is the case with the INE; and it must necessarily be armored with equally or even more effective security tools that guarantee its inviolability, even protecting the information of the public servants themselves who could fall prey to unhealthy desires.

In the week that ends, an initiative was presented in Congress that aims for the so-called CURP to become that identity card that is proposed to contain the biometric data of each person, but the initiative does not clarify who or who will be responsible for its protection. of the personal information of each Mexican, there is no specific budget assigned to a program of that magnitude nor are the mechanisms that will be articulated for both the collection of information and its safeguarding mentioned. Faced with this scenario, it seems like a frankly demagogic matter; they want to announce a new ID without assigning a weight to it.

Given the events narrated, there are two possible explanations, the first revolves around the fact that it is the “dead man's backpack”, meaning that they know in advance that it will not be possible and they are simply using a new mechanism to distract attention from the bloodbath. in which Mexico is located, or the second, which is much more serious, perhaps the government intends to take the database out of the hands of the INE without clarifying responsibilities and promoting the electoral use of said information. Both explanations are despicable and we as citizens must demand that they be clarified promptly before they begin to dominate the new legislative ridiculousness.

I don't want to imagine that the federal Executive, with its elementary style, is proposing to its subordinates that the information be "written down on pieces of paper", as it usually makes its proposals.