Overview
- The Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones has shifted responsibility to phone companies to complete a national program that links prepaid SIMs to each holder's CURP and requires a 'prueba de vida' during registration.
- The regulator reported in the first week of July that about 65.3 million lines are linked and roughly 79 million prepaid lines remain pending, a gap regulators say includes many inactive SIMs.
- Operators must send repeated reminder messages twice weekly and daily in the final week, and they have up to 72 hours after each deadline to suspend unregistered lines under a staggered calendar that begins August 15 and runs through December 31, 2026.
- The Diario Oficial decree and operator changes require officials ID plus a live photo or video for verification, and companies including Telcel now demand INE or passport plus real‑time video before showing CURP-linked lines.
- Authorities say identity photos and videos are deleted after authentication, but past carrier data incidents and a 2022 court ruling on biometric registries keep privacy and banking‑access concerns central to public debate and pending legal challenges.