Mexicans' worse cellphone fears come true

MEXICO CITY, May 12 (UPI) -- Private data of millions of Mexicans who had registered their cellphones with the government showed up for sale in a Mexico City flea market, officials said.

The registration program, meant to combat rampant telephone extortion rackets and drug-related kidnapping attempts, backfired when data from official state registries ended up for sale for a few thousand dollars at the Tepito flea market, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

The program had met with opposition, and an estimated 26 million cellphone owners had refused to submit their names to the government-mandated campaign fearing invasion of privacy and misuse of the data, the Times said.

Opponents of the program were quick to point to the leaking of the data as confirming their worst suspicions.

"This was a devastating blow to any effort to create a relationship of trust between citizens and the authorities," Gustavo Fondevila, a researcher at the Center for Investigation and Economic Studies, said. "There is complete mistrust toward everything the government decides, promises and especially when it asks for personal information. And it is completely justified."