Cuba's Law on the Personal Identity and Address System — A MININT-Run Biometric Registry With No Independent Oversight

On July 31, 2026, Cuba's National Assembly approved the Law of the System of Personal Identity and Address, administered by the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) through its Directorate of Identification, Migration and Foreigners' Affairs (DIMEC). The law creates a "Certified Digital Identity" that links citizens' biometric data — facial recognition, fingerprints, iris scans, voice patterns and digital signatures — to their state files and enables monitoring of internet activity.

It builds on Decreto 125/2025, which established the "Centro de Gobierno Digital" and its Soberanía platform, launched in July 2025. By August 2026 that platform had verified over 43,000 digital identities, processed roughly 24,000 adult passport applications and registered close to 40,000 civil-status records across 18 online services.

Independent Cuban outlets report that the new law includes no independent judicial oversight of the biometric database. Investigator Julio Aleaga Pesant said the system "cannot be taken without China", and historian Manuel Cuesta Morúa warned of "digital control of the entire country without laws protecting fundamental rights" — concerns sharpened by comparisons to Chinese-style social-credit systems and by stricter internal-residency rules that particularly restrict movement to Havana.

The platform's own director has acknowledged that usage figures "are still insufficient", with fewer than 4% of Cuban transactions currently digital, against the slowest average internet speeds in Latin America (7.21 Mbps, falling below 2 Mbps during blackouts) and telecommunications infrastructure that loses nearly half its capacity during Cuba's frequent nationwide power outages.

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