On July 1, 2025, Mexico approved The national survey and intelligence system in public security law. The new legislation, led by the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, creates a legal framework for the coordination between the security agencies which attack organized crime.
The reform aims to improve the integration of evidence for the Office of the Attorney General, as well as to accelerate surveys and reduce gaps in criminal proceedings. He grants the Ministry of Security and Protection of Citizens (Secretaría de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana – SSPC) Powers to access personal, budgetary, biometric and geolocalized data of public and private sources without previous judicial order. To achieve this, he calls for the creation of a central intelligence platform, managed by Digital Transformation Agency and the National Intelligence Center (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia – CNI), to centralize information.
Although the new legislation aims to combat crime, the expansion of the powers it allows could lead to abuse of privacy and civil rights, as well as to create vulnerabilities in the proposed systems, which facilitates criminal or corrupt actors to access sensitive data.
Insight Crime spoke with Pepe Flores, acting director of the Mexican Human Rights Organization, R3D: Red in Defensa of Los Derechos Digitaliques, on the potential impact of this law on the fight against organized crime in Mexico.
Insight Crime (IC): What impact do you think that this reform will have on the fight against criminal intelligence and organized crime in Mexico?
Pepe Flores (PF): The law starts from the premise that the authorities of inquiry and prosecution have no sufficient technological capacity to combat crime and therefore need more.
This premise is questionable. In reality, nothing guarantees that these new tools for interconnection and centralization of public and private databases will have a significant impact on the reduction of crime.
The authorities already have many technological capacities, such as real -time geolocation and access to telecommunications data. However, their use revealed cases where the stored data was accessible without judicial authorization and the abuse of exceptional mechanisms. The reform expanding these powers, the potential for abuse becomes more worrying.
CI: The proposed legislation provides for a single centralized database accessible by the federal, state and municipal authorities without prior judicial authorization. How could this measure allocate organized crime?
PF: The law is created in order to target organized crime, but the absence of clear limits opens the door to arbitrary, impunity and discretion.
The law envisages a central intelligence platform to consolidate access and to connect public and private databases under the control of the digital processing agency and the National Intelligence Center. This information could be used without prior judicial authorization to produce “intelligence products”, an ambiguous concept that could include anything, preventive security tasks to national security issues without first establishing a criminal case.
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This framework allows the sharing of information between the levels of public institutions and with private actors. For example, an authority for combating the fight against the fight against financial entities. Such requests could be made at the discretion of prosecutors without notifying the people affected. The reform does not specify either if companies will be able to – or want – play a proactive role in the alert their users on these requests.
IC: Could this reform allow the sharing of data between the Mexican government and the foreign authorities, like the United States? Under what conditions?
PF: The reforms allow several scenarios involving data transnationality. On the one hand, they allow data requests on Mexican citizens of foreign companies. On the other, they authorize the exchange of databases and intelligence products with “entities of other countries”, as the law. This could, for example, open the door to an agreement between the Ministry of Security of Mexico and the US State Department. The law does not establish guarantees to ensure that such exchanges occur strictly within a framework of international security cooperation.
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IC: What are the main challenges that Mexico will face in the implementation of the measures proposed by this reform?
PF: A challenge is the collection and use of biometric data. The law requires that the connection of the new national identity system with biometric data already held by other agencies – such as passport or tax recordings – which allows the blind transfer of data between institutions. This raises questions about data protection standards and the risk of leaks or cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Another concern is the use of data requested in automated decision -making systems. There is a risk that a person can be reported as a criminal risk simply to live in a certain district, by frequenting a certain area or by belonging to a specific ethnic or racial group.
IC: The content of the reform has aroused criticism of any human rights violations and the lack of data protection. What alternative measures could more effectively strengthen Mexico's capacity to detect criminal information?
PF: First, judicial surveillance is essential. Keeping a legal file of requests would document the number of people and would create a mechanism of transparency and responsibility to prevent abuse.
Second, concepts such as “intelligence products” or “for national security reasons” should not be as wide and vague, because they give the authorities the discretion to use new tools so as to normalize mass monitoring.
Third, individuals should have the right to notify, they therefore know both that they have been targeted for surveillance and the authority that has published the request.
Finally, companies and private players who receive these requests should have proactive obligations. The declaration of these figures is important so that the company can identify itself when the abuses of these powers occur.
IC: Is there a country in the region that could serve as an example in Mexico in the design of strategies for surveys and information related to security?
PF: In Colombia, for example, officials have continued peace culture campaigns instead of introducing facial recognition cameras or biometric identification to combat violence in football stadiums. These campaigns have produced more oriented results towards long -term change.
In other countries, we note the importation of safety models inspired by the United States based on identification and recognition, the normalization of blind mass monitoring and now access to the data preserved.
Latin America is at a critical moment in the implementation of certain technologies for the application of laws and criminal surveys. I believe that this is linked to American influence in the push of security policies which are increasingly emphasizing punitive rather than preventive models. Latin America is heading for this security story, which normalizes mass monitoring and discriminatory.
This interview has been modified for more clarity and length.
