On Jan. 19, 2011, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon signed an executive order requiring within the next five years all Mexicans 17 years old and younger have a biometric national identity card that would include a facial photograph, all 10 fingerprints, and an iris scan.
To carry out the presidential executive order, the Mexican Directorate General of the National Population Register plans to go to all elementary schools in Mexico schools in Mexico to record the required biometric information and issue individual identity cards. Reasonable estimates are that by the end of 2012, Mexico plans to issue more than 25.7 million biometric identity cards to the nation's children 18 years old and younger.
While promoted as a way to prevent crimes such as identity theft, Mexico has decided to begin with the nation's school children to create the type of biometric national identity database that will allow Mexican children as they grow up to already possess the biometric information they will need to obtain North American Trusted Traveler border pass cards the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is preparing to issue to Mexican citizens.
Once the nation's children are recorded in this biometric national identity database, the plan is to add a second phase that will extend the biometric identification cards to Mexican adults, with a third phase designed to establish a national registry for all foreigners residing in Mexico.
Each card bears a unique personal ID number and a face photo designed to make sure that only the person to whom the card was issued can use the card.
Critics in Mexico have charged that the Mexican effort to enroll school children in a national biometric personal identity database involves the early implementation of an incremental "new world order" plan designed to fit into initiatives designed under the Security and Prosperity Partnership to evolve the North American Free Trade Agreement into a continental or regional North American Union governmental structure.