Mexico’s Missing: Experts Warn Tech Alone Won’t Solve Crisis

Mexico’s Missing: Experts Warn Tech Alone Won’t Solve Crisis

CIVICUS spoke with a member of the International Network of Associations of Missing Persons about the crisis of enforced disappearances in Mexico.

The situation has reached alarming proportions, with over 52,000 unidentified bodies in morgues and mass graves. On 1 July, the Mexican Congress approved controversial changes to the General Law on Disappearances. These reforms aim to modernise the search process through a national biometric system, but human rights organisations and victims’ groups warn they could establish an unprecedented system of mass surveillance.

What are the main changes and how will they affect searches?

The reforms seek to strengthen mechanisms for searching, locating, and identifying missing persons. Key innovations include the creation of a National Investigation File Database and a Single Identity Platform that integrates multiple databases. The revised law also strengthens the Unique Population Registry Code (CURP) by incorporating biometric data such as iris scans, photographs, and fingerprints.

Authorities and individuals are now legally obliged to provide information useful for searches. New institutions, including the National Guard and the Ministry of Security, have been incorporated into the National Search System. Penalties for enforced disappearance have also been increased. The reforms aim to ensure faster, more efficient searches through technology, inter-institutional coordination, satellite imagery, and advanced identification methods.

Risks of authorities’ access to biometric data

Serious concerns exist that security and justice institutions—including prosecutors’ offices, the National Guard, and the National Intelligence Centre—will have unrestricted access to public and private databases containing biometric information. While the official rationale is that this access will speed up searches, civil society warns that the Single Identity Platform and biometric CURP could become tools of mass surveillance. Authorities could misuse the data, using it for population control rather than locating missing persons, threatening privacy and security rights.

Victims’ groups’ reactions

Victims’ collectives have rejected the reforms as opaque and rushed. While roundtable discussions were held, they were largely symbolic, and victims’ proposals were largely ignored. Families of missing persons argue that the reforms focus on technological solutions without addressing underlying structural issues such as corruption, cronyism, organised crime, and impunity.

“No technological solution will work as long as the institutions responsible for abuses and cover-ups remain in charge of implementing it,” one activist said.

The new law risks repeating the mistakes of the 2017 General Law on Enforced Disappearances, which criminalised the offence, created a national search system, and aimed to ensure family participation—but was never properly implemented. Without effective enforcement mechanisms, the new law may deepen frustration and perpetuate impunity.

Alternatives proposed by victims’ groups

Victims demand more than legislative changes. They call for truth and justice through thorough investigations, prosecution of those responsible in state institutions and organised crime groups, and effective field searches coordinated with active participation of victims’ groups.

They also stress the urgency of identifying the over 52,000 unnamed individuals in morgues and mass graves, calling for an Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism. Additionally, they demand real protection for searchers who continue to face threats and attacks.

Above all, victims demand an end to impunity by dismantling networks of corruption and collusion between authorities and organised crime. As one local activist emphasised, without a genuine National Plan for Missing Persons, none of these reforms will work. Each state also needs its own plan; otherwise, the crisis will continue—without results, without reports, and without answers about the disappeared.