Mexico City faces a housing crisis, and within a legislative debate, measures to combat real estate speculation and promote access to housing are being discussed. One of the most controversial innovations was the creation of a mandatory digital registry for rental contracts. Under the new rules, new contracts must be registered within 30 days, and existing ones within 90 days. The stated goal of this registry is to monitor rent increases and ensure compliance with regulations. However, many experts question the constitutionality of this measure, arguing its true purpose is not statistical but for state control. A mandatory rental registry could be integrated with other public databases for tax, security, or intelligence purposes, creating a risk of profiling citizens. Despite arguments that the registry is needed to control price hikes, alternative statistical methods, such as surveys, exist. The key question is whether this measure is proportional to the intrusion into citizens' private lives and the accumulation of their personal data. As long as these questions remain open, the constitutionality of the rental registry will remain a provisional conclusion.
